Situated in a triangle between Worcester, Stratford-upon-Avon and Cheltenham, the historic market town of Evesham is nestled in the heart of the famous horticultural Vale of Evesham - described by some as the fruit and vegetable basket of England.
Over the years, the area has become home to a large number of fresh produce firms and related logistical, labour and technology businesses. While several companies have set up base in Evesham itself, others have chosen sites several miles from the town, notably on an industrial estate in nearby Honeybourne. The words Evesham and Honeybourne are now synonymous with fresh produce to those in the know, and the region is seen as one of three key produce hubs in the UK, along with Paddock Wood in Kent and Spalding in Lincolnshire. But what enticed so many firms to set up home there in the first place?
Evesham’s access to major motorway links throughout the country is generally deemed superb, with the M40, M42, M6, M5 and M1 all within a 30- to 45-minute radius. Some firms cite a proximity to the growing base as another particular benefit of Evesham, as well as its relatively short distance from various ports and Heathrow airport.
Fresh produce logistics specialist Bannister Ltd commenced trading in 1965 in Offenham, near Evesham. “The site has evolved and expanded over the years, and has recently been further modernised,” says the company’s Tom Owens. “We now offer temperature-controlled warehousing and storage for perishable and non-perishable goods.” Bannister’s transport network consists of a fleet of articulated vehicles, which the firm says is capable of carrying ambient, chilled or frozen goods and covers the UK and Europe. The vehicles are electronically tracked and monitored 24 hours a day.
“The excellent road links here are a real plus, and having a high number of customers concentrated in one region eases load consolidation before dispatch,” says Owens. “We are involved in imports from Europe, and our drivers use the Channel Tunnel as the fastest and most convenient route to the continent.”
Since berry specialists AMS Marketing and Well Pict European moved to the Honeybourne Industrial Estate in 1992, the firm has seen a number of fundamental changes to its business, as well as to the fresh produce industry itself, according to sales and marketing director Carol Ford.
“The move to Honeybourne heralded a new era for our business, in supplying the multiples,” she tells FPJ. “This site was seen as suitable for a number of reasons, but primarily because AMS would be able to purchase the facility at some point in the future.”
Honeybourne is AMS’s main hub, although the firm also operates offices in Barnstaple, Devon, as well as a number of British Retail Consortium (BRC)-approved facilities at several of its growers around the UK and overseas.
“In the 15 years that we have been based at Honeybourne, our facilities have been developed, enhanced and upgraded significantly, driven by our ability to grow and handle soft fruit,” says Ford. “We now operate all aspects of the supply chain for our berry products from Honeybourne, including outbound and inbound logistics, sales and marketing, grower management, technical, administration and IT. This has been so successful that we are able to lend support and demonstrate to our satellite packing facilities throughout the country.”
Fresh produce firms have continued flocking to the area since the mid-1990s. Organic Farm Foods (OFF) started life in 1980 in Lampeter, west Wales, as a specialist organic importer and supplier. But in 1998, the firm upped sticks and moved to its current site on the Honeybourne estate. “Our owners at the time decided that Evesham had the right mix of people and transport links for our needs, and we predominantly recruited workers from the area,” explains Adam Wakeley, joint managing director of OFF. “We handle £20 million-worth of 100 per cent organic produce from this one site. We also have a sister company in the Netherlands called Eosta, with whom we share technical resources and jointly procure and inter-trade.”
Importer Planet Produce set up base in Evesham in 1999, says managing director Norman Heyes, and the area’s logistical advantages made it a winning choice for the company. “Evesham isone of three produce hubs in the UK - the other two of course being Spalding and Paddock Wood -but we were familiar with this area and knew its strengths from the beginning.Itsexcellent transport links to the retail, wholesale and foodservice sectors offered us thenational coverage we desperately needed to get started,” he tells FPJ. “Our Evesham sitehas proven to be a real winner,very cost-effective,centrally located and close to the major transport routes.”
Two years ago, Planet Producebought its previously rented 20,000sqft site, andthe facility is now BRC accredited. The company has just finished its latest extension phase, the addition of two new coldstores, each with a 250-pallet capacity. Some 30 people work on site across both the offices and packhouses.
“This is not our only distribution point - we have astrong airfreightbusiness at Heathrow and distributionoptions at mostUK sea ports - but abouttwo-thirds of our produce is handledthrough Evesham, and the remaining third throughthe other logistical points,” says Heyes.
Primafruit began trading from Evesham in 2000. Prior to that, the firm was based in Honeybourne. “Our Evesham site is modern and extensive,” says finance and operations director Paul Fowler. “Alongside our commercial and office-based staff, it also comfortably accommodates our operations in our main product areas of kiwifruit, stonefruit and grapes. A section of the facility is used by Mack Multiples, which operates a vegetable supply facility from this location. We’re a single-stop location for everything from logistics and distribution through to coldstorage, ripening and packing.”
The Evesham base affords Primafruit excellent access to the UK distribution network, for both inbound and outbound produce, according to Fowler. “We have much better access to western England, Wales and Scotland than companies in the other main supply areas in the South and East of England,” he says. “This brings inevitable efficiencies and can help cut down on food miles, with good logistics management. We’re also lucky to have a good pool of ‘produce-skilled’ labour on which to draw for both permanent and temporary staff when required.”
Bristol is a fast-growing port for produce imports, and Primafruit tries to organise shipments here wherever possible to help minimise road miles, as its proximity offers inevitable transport and logistics savings to customers, says Fowler.
“Our plans in the short to medium term are to make the best use of this facility. It’s always hard to plan long term in this industry, but we have a strong trading history and an excellent record for quality and reliability in our product areas,” he adds.
Mergers, acquisitions and bankruptcies are part and parcel of the fresh produce industry, but with one or two notable exceptions - most recently the loss of Bomfords - companies in Evesham seem to have ridden the storm and most are still going strong.
“Although there is a healthy level of competition in the vale, and despite increasing pressure on the industry from fuel price hikes and road congestion, the main players in Evesham have, by and large, managed to stay in the game,” says Owens. But the vale presents its disadvantages as well as advantages, he continues. “This year, flooding caused a lot of problems in the area, and operations were affected for a couple of days.
“However, if business continues to increase in line with the current trend, we shall be looking to expand capacity in the not-too-distant future, and we are always looking at new sources of revenue to complement our core business,” he adds.
“Our industry continues to evolve, andEvesham has not escaped these changes. The last twelve months have seen major comings and goings -but that is just the fresh produce business,” says Planet Produce commercial director Pete Watson. “Even with the changes, Evesham is still a very vibrantcentre with plenty of really good companies and a strong mix of supermarket, foodservice and wholesale suppliers.”
Ford agrees. “I don’t believe that companies move because of the area, but primarily because of the expansion and contraction of the produce industry, as growers and suppliers have become specialised,” she says.
The Vale of Evesham has been involved in the industry for generations, across all facets of the industry -growing, packing, distribution and sales are catered for, according to Heyes.“Our local growersplay a major part in the mix of our product range and the balance of our company’s offer to our customers. We have always handled a substantial volume ofspeciality salad during the summer season. Baby leaf lines (rocket, red chard and spinach) are the latest local additions to our availability, and sales on all three have been very exciting.Essentially, Evesham has served us well; we have spent the lastfour months developing our site, and we feel we are well set for the next four or five years,” he adds.
Wakeley agrees that the area offers a solid base for fresh produce firms. “There may only be a handful of big companies in Evesham, but it’s all been pretty steady here for a few years now. Being an organic fruit importer, there are really not many companies in Evesham doing what we do, and we are not quite so engulfed in the Evesham culture as other firms might be. But it is easy for us to take advantage of the staff in the area and the pick-up and delivery points to retail, and we can offer employees a strong career path that means staff retention levels over the years have been relatively high.”
So what is in the pipeline for Evesham’s major players?
AMS has recently launched its new range of Berry Good products under the You Are What You Eat brand. “Sales have been very positive; consumer reaction and feedback has been very supportive, witnessed by both strong sales and low waste,” explains Ford. “This product development has enabled us to tailor a healthy eating format into a grab-and-go market. We are selling this product not only in retail outlets but also in gyms, which has been a great achievement by us in developing other sales channels.”
AMS, which is the sales and marketing arm for Well Pict European growers, has an expansion plan based upon business developments and its strategy for the next five years. “We all work as one team; Well Pict has been structured to cater to the needs of our farms and growers, along with supply chain provision,” says Ford. “This was a development that we implemented a number of years ago in order to focus our attention on both our customers and growers.”
OFF has branched out into organic apple production in Herefordshire in a bid to show UK growers who are reluctant to convert that it can be done.
“We have 17 hectares of our own organic apple production in the ground,” says Wakeley. “Not many other growers will venture into organic production because it is high risk and there is a lack of knowledge. Over the last couple of years we have looked for growers out there to handle this for us, but have found nobody appropriate. So we have set up our own production branch - Organic Green Orchards - funded by Triodos Bank and Peter Kindsley, who own OFF. Our criteria is to reduce food miles and support multiples who have supported us with a northern-hemisphere programme that will take imports off the shelf and replace them with UK fruit. We are also looking at the viability of extending this into fruits other than apples, but it is early days yet.”
Growth in the organic market is slowing down, according to Wakeley, and is not as bullish as people would like to believe. “We need to focus on bringing costs down in line with conventional produce, increasing volume but not value,” he says. “Growth is not massive and uncontrolled, but should be about filling gaps on the shoulders of seasons, as there is still not year-round supply of all organic product lines. Gaps are hard to fill in organics, and the reason product is not always there is because pioneering work is needed to find the right varieties and techniques that can prolong the season.”
But Wakeley warns that a recent glut of farm conversions could be problematic for the organic category. “A lot of growers, for example in North America, have recently jumped on the bandwagon and converted their farms to organic, and there is a danger they will flood the market with organic product without offering a significant point of difference. Only 3.6 per cent of the produce market is organic, so it is an easy one to flood.”
In the UK, many fruit growers have shunned organics, because the damp climate encourages pests, and the transition periods are not very accommodating, taking many years for conversion to complete, says Wakeley.
“That is why OFF has decided to take the helm, and we are hoping we can show growers it can be done, setting a precedent for them. We pride ourselves in being pioneers - our aim is to be proactive and kick-start the organic English fruit industry. Whatever the product, we want to be at the forefront of creating a sustainable fruit industry, as organics have now transcended from a niche and form part of the mainstream fruit and vegetable offer in the UK,” he adds.
Away from the Vale of Evesham, Planet Produce hasopened a new office in legendary Parisian wholesale market Rungis, to serve its foodservice and high-class catering customers in the UK. “We are looking to develop a fine food business, sourcing fresh produce but also deli and dairy,” says Watson. “We only got up and running this year,but already see great potential.”
Planet Produce has traded successfully since 1999 and now generates a turnover in excess of £14 million, offering more than 150 product lines to its customers across the UK and Ireland. “We are optimistic and confident for the future,” adds Heyes.
CPT TAKES TO TASKER
In September, Crop Pro-Tech Limited (CPT) acquired the former company Well Pict Tunnels. The firm, which is based on the Honeybourne Estate, has announced the addition of Rob Tasker to its team as sales manager. Tasker was previously production manager at Hiller Farms, with responsibility for tunnel management, irrigation and nutrition. His background is in a family-run soft-fruit and arable farm in Nottinghamshire, which supplied several major multiples.
“Being part of a third-generation family business has given me a passion for the best and most feasible way to drive any business forward,” says Tasker. “CPT will fulfil all growers’ needs and requirements. Service will be our priority, believing repeat business only comes through trust coupled with great service.”
Aurel Voiculescu, CPT managing director, says: “Rob has great drive and enthusiasm to provide first-class service to everyone he deals with.”
CPT offers growers Spanish multi-span tunnels, high-strength polythene films, table-top growing systems and crop production machinery. “We are constantly developing new ideas and concepts with the aim of providing high-quality machines to aid growers to produce as high a quality fruit crop as possible,” adds Voiculescu.
EVESHAM PAYS OFF FOR ENZA ZADEN
Enza Zaden UK Ltd first opened for business in Evesham on September 1, 2004, moving from Newton Abbot in Devon, where it had been based since 1985. “We moved to Evesham for a more centrally positioned location,” explains the company’s Alan Cresswell.
The site was built to order in the corner of a 10-acre field, and the current building contains Enza Zaden’s sales office, plus its seed store, which is fully climatically controlled at 14°C and humidity controlled at 40 per cent.
“The benefit of being centrally located within our own trial fields is mainly that we are conveniently placed for visits,” says Cresswell. “The one thing every species we breed has in common is that it needs to be profitable for everyone in the chain. We also try to breed new varieties with extra resistance to various diseases and aphids. The organic sector is important for us, and as long as there is a strong enough demand from the marketplace, we will keep developing new varieties for this sector.”
Enza Zaden supplies classic-type tomatoes such as Careza, Valdeza, the cocktail variety Aranca and new variety Oakley, which according to Cresswell, “produces exceptional flavour and truss formation, very similar to Aranca, but with the added advantage of also having mildew tolerance”. Other new Enza Zaden tomato varieties include Okapi and Baylee. On the sweet pepper front, the firm’s Ferrari variety is performing well, and this season the Cupra variety is also coming through, Cresswell says. The firm is also set to introduce a new range of spinach varieties, with the added advantage of being resistant to mildew strains Pfs1 to 10.
“In lettuce, the combination of BL1-25 mildew resistance and Nasonovia resistance is become even more important,” says Cresswell. “Therefore, a lot of effort is going into breeding varieties with genes resistance to these diseases. In 2008, we will be introducing several new lettuce lines, and will be expanding our Eazy leaf lettuce range.”
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