Standing proudly against a backdrop of snowy mountains and vast swathes of open land, Albert Bartlett’s six-year-old Airdrie facility is testament to the company’s long-term vision for the future, as it seeks to boost the potato category, enhance its environmental efficiencies and build an international reputation for itself.
Best known for its Rooster-branded spuds, the 60-year-old potato packer has made regular appearances on the small screen since 2005, culminating in a major coup when it recruited Desperate Housewives star Marcia Cross as the TV face of its red-skinned variety in October last year. This groundbreaking advertising campaign has been swiftly followed this spring with a promotional link-up with new Disney film Toy Story 3.
Albert Bartlett was established in 1948, when the eponymous founder invested £30 in an old water boiler and cast iron bath to set up a small beetroot boiling operation, selling his produce under the Scottie Beetroot label - showing that brands were a key part of the business even back then.
Current owner Ronnie Bartlett is the third generation of the family to manage the business, which employs 900 people across its sites in Airdrie, Boston in Lincolnshire and Jersey, the latest addition to the portfolio. Today, the firm supplies one in five of Britain’s fresh potatoes, along with sending product to the chilled and frozen markets.
A structural change in the way the operation is run in the last 12 months has seen Ronnie separate out the potato side of the business, maintaining the Albert Bartlett name and the Rooster brand, while his brother Alan has set up a separate company known as Alan Bartlett & Son Ltd in Cambridgeshire, to handle what used to be the root vegetable side of Albert Bartlett, from 3,000 hectares of production in the county.
Albert Bartlett sources potatoes from a long-established network of 85 growers in the UK, stretching from Inverness to Cornwall, across a planted area of more than 10,000ha. Rooster is grown in Scotland, Lincolnshire, Suffolk and Cornwall, and last year for the first time, growers on the island of Jersey also trialled production of the variety.
Retail forms the core of the Albert Bartlett business, taking 95 per cent of sales, with the remainder going to foodservice, wholesale and processing, as well as a small seed potato market.
Key varieties include Rooster - for which Bartlett’s secured the exclusive UK marketing rights from breeder Irish Potato Marketing in 2003 - general purpose white baker Osprey, Vivaldi and Anya, both of the latter being exclusive to the Taste the Difference range at Sainsbury’s.
Two new varieties are also due to launch this autumn - Apache, a small potato ideal for roasting in its skin, and Purple Majesty, which the company unveiled at Fruit Logistica in Berlin in February as a great potato for making purple mash. “Potatoes are a traditional category that’s criticised for not being fun enough,” says marketing manager John Hicks. “But purple mash has a great part to play, from kids’ meals to dinner parties.”
Creating strong partnerships with its grower network is crucial to Bartlett’s. “The key thing on the grower front is that it is about partnerships and relationships,” says Hicks. “We feel it should be a joined-up effort in every part of the business.
“Other than for the controlled varieties, all our growers operate under a handshake agreement. Our technical team are out in our grower base every day and we supply the seed and recommend and agree varieties for their land.”
Last year, Albert Bartlett growers doubled their acreage of Rooster, to coincide with anticipated demand following the launch of the Marcia Cross TV campaign. “There is huge trust there and hopefully we have brought the grower base closer to the retailer, so that we are all focused on the end consumer,” explains Hicks. “We have quarterly grower meetings, but in terms of communication our growers find out about something like our Marcia Cross or Toy Story 3 campaigns at the same time as the rest of our staff. We treat them as if they are part of the team, so they are always involved and understand our direction from the start.”
A brand is for life
A maincrop red-skinned, yellow-flesh variety, Rooster can be used for roasting, baking, mashing and chipping and as the first fresh vegetable brand in the UK, it has certainly won the hearts and minds of consumers thanks to some canny marketing campaigns and consistent product quality.
Nowadays, Bartlett’s handles an average of 2,000 tonnes of Rooster a week - a far cry from the 80t it used to handle a week in 2003.
Figures from Kantar Worldpanel for the four weeks to 27 December 2009 reveal that retail volume for Rooster was up 135 per cent year on year and that brand value stood at £40 million.
“Rooster for us is an all rounder, and that’s key,” says Hicks. “Price is a major focus for our customers, but they also want versatility.”
Building a brand in the fresh produce industry is no mean feat, but Albert Bartlett knew it was onto something big when in 2005, Rooster became the first-ever branded fresh vegetable in the UK to hit the small screen with its Potato Game advert, featuring youngsters playing One Potato, Two Potato in a school playground.
“The brand was extended in 2008 with the introduction of Rooster Oven Chips and Rustic Wedges,” says Hicks. “We doubled our acreage for the 2009 growing season and in the same way increased our investment in the TV ads.”
Michelin-starred chefs Andrew Fairlie of Scotland’s Gleneagles Hotel and Michel Roux of London restaurant Le Gavroche have played a key role in the development of the Rooster brand, with their recipes appearing on pack.
But it was the recruitment of Hollywood star Marcia Cross as the face of the brand, in a TV campaign that ran from 1 October 2009 through to Christmas, which really helped to secure the brand’s role as a household name.
The key target of the Marcia Cross campaign was the 18- to 25-year-old audience, which does not eat potatoes in the same volume or frequency as older consumers. Indeed, the whole brand has been designed with this younger audience in mind, to help potatoes compete with more fashionable products such as pasta, rice and couscous.
The momentum generated by the Marcia Cross campaign has been upheld thanks to this spring’s follow-up promotion, a joint link-up between the Albert Bartlett Rooster brand and Disney movie Toy Story 3. An on-pack competition offers shoppers the chance to win a trip to the film’s world premiere in Los Angeles, backed by a TV advertising campaign that launched the weekend before Easter.
Albert Bartlett has tended to stay very much in the background of the potato business as a trade name only, but now that the company logo sits proudly on the front of all Rooster-branded packs, Hicks is convinced that consumers want to know about the history of the firm. “The brand is evolving and we have a longer-term vision for the business. Becoming a brand requires a change in the culture and mindset,” he says. “We are still getting used to being a brand.”
Behind the scenes
Building a business such as Albert Bartlett would not be possible without the right facilities behind the scenes keeping everything ticking over.
Over the last few years, the firm has made a lot of internal improvements to its packing operations, according to Hicks, with one eye constantly on its long-term vision. The Airdrie facility has a capacity of 8,000t of pre-pack a week, including 500t of organic pre-pack, while the Boston site can pre-pack 2,000t of potatoes a week.
“Most of our farms are only one and a half to two and a half hours away from our Airdrie site,” says Hicks. “Airdrie is a great location for us in Scotland - the road networks are fantastic and all the major retailers have a hub within one hour by road.”
When it started building the Airdrie packhouse six years ago, Albert Bartlett managers asked their staff for feedback on the kind of facility that they wanted to work in - giving rise to the light, airy and clean building that today houses 26 packing lines and is the biggest employer in Lanarkshire. A water treatment plant is also housed on the site.
The latest technology is employed to ensure that the Rooster brand maintains its consistency. A unique building management system gives engineering manager Sandy Colvan the ability to control what is happening in every part of the building at any one time, with direct control over utility usage, fridges and lighting levels, among other things. “It’s quite a special system,” says Colvan. “It was all put in as we constructed the building, as it would be impossible to retrofit everything. Thanks to this system, our efficiencies have gone up. This attention to detail helps us stand apart.”
The multi-million pound facility that Albert Bartlett opened last spring in Jersey has followed the Airdrie model in every respect. “Not only are environmental initiatives a great story and the right thing to do, but they affect the bottom line as well,” says Hicks. “When you visit the Albert Bartlett business in Jersey, it really feels like part of the Bartlett model.
“We are aiming to put the taste and freshness back into Jersey Royals. The group of 11 island farmers we are working with are fourth and fifth generation and they are still using traditional methods. Albert Bartlett agronomists work closely with growers to help them plan their crops, and we are encouraging traditional farming methods while increasing efficiencies.
“There are logistical challenges to packing potatoes on an island but there are also huge benefits. People trade up to Jersey Royals, so the quality has got to be right.”
The chill factor
Rooster potatoes now maintain a firm presence in the chilled and frozen categories, although building penetration will be a long-term process, according to Mark Murray, head of chilled and frozen.
“We took a decision to go healthy on our chips, with less than three per cent fat, but people eating chips are looking for indulgence, so we are looking at our options in frozen for now,” he explains. “But we have launched chilled mash into Sainsbury’s and Booths in the last 12 months and we are also looking at a Jersey Royal crush this year.
“The frozen and chilled category is a long-term project for Albert Bartlett, but we have had a very positive start. We have entered two very competitive sectors - however, we have some fantastic raw materials available to us and we look forward to the challenge of establishing the Albert Bartlett Rooster brand and hopefully further new products,” adds Murray.
An international platform
As well as its strong presence in the UK, Albert Bartlett is now aiming to make a name for itself and the Rooster brand overseas.
International manager Tim Hammond tells FPJ: “One of our aims is to take the brand into Europe and work with like-minded packers there. We already talk with the key retailers overseas. At the same time, it is also important for us to exchange ideas and concepts with continental packers to strengthen the industry as a whole.
“The focus for Rooster would probably be central and northern Europe, but there is interest in southern Europe for Anya,” adds Hammond. “At a retail level, we are biding our time and the momentum built here in the UK has already had quite a high impact on the continent.”
Albert Bartlett has exhibited at trade fair Fruit Logistica in Berlin for three years now. “More companies from outside Europe talked to us this year, partly out of intrigue and also because we had some additional varieties, such as Purple Majesty,” adds Hammond.
Next on the agenda
So what’s next on the agenda for Albert Bartlett? Gillian Kynoch, Bartlett’s head of development, explains that one big project underway, in conjunction with the Fresh Potato Suppliers’ Association and the Potato Council, is to lobby DEFRA’s Fruit and Vegetable Task Force to include potatoes in the 5 A DAY scheme or any similar successor.
Kynoch, a dietician by trade, is also closely involved with new product development. Each year, Will Jackson, Bartlett’s technical manager - agronomy, identifies and trials more than 100 new varieties at test sites across the UK. Fairlie and Roux trial and provide feedback on the varieties that Bartlett’s believes to have commercial potential, accompanied by full independent sensory appraisal and cooking tests, developed by Kynoch.
“The potato sector has developed varieties that look good and yield well, but in the past we have lost our focus on taste,” says Hicks. “Everything we do now must taste good.”
The company is also investing into the future of the local community and the next generation coming into the trade, by engaging with numerous educational projects. “We have thousands of kids coming through the site every year and also organise work experience placements,” says Hicks. “At primary schools, health promotion is key, whereas at secondary schools we are trying to show the pupils that there are work opportunities in produce.”
Albert Bartlett has chosen its investments wisely over the last few years and Hicks is adamant that despite its rapid growth in recent times, there are plenty of further opportunities for the company to grasp.
He says: “We have taken the brand a long way in the last six years, but there is still potential for brand extension and an opportunity of bringing in new products. Things change so fast that we need to make sure we deliver consistency across the board.
“We are focused on bringing younger people into the fixture and hopefully, we have started that with the Marcia Cross campaign.
“We have invested at the right time and now we are just going to sit tight and see how the market unfolds,” adds Hicks.
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