The sun is shining in Peterborough as we pull up in front of Produce World’s offices.

There is a warm, calm feeling to the building, which reflects the reputation of the Burgess family. Even when in April the management had the uncomfortable job of reporting an £8m accounting error in the Marshalls’ business, they did so with composure.

Of that time, Jason Burgess’ comment is to offer the advice that should anyone be thinking to take over a business, give it a thorough review. “Fully understand the challenges of that business and the benefits of taking it over. I would under promise and over deliver,” he adds.

Burgess is looking relaxed and happy to talk about the journey Produce World has been on. The business has an enviable reputation as one that is built on solid grounds, with a strong family team behind it that has driven organic growth, with steady acquisitions.

It was previous poor accounting within Marshalls that let the side down on a firm that has navigated two world wars, two recessions and vast amounts of legislative and technical changes.

However, the company came back from that loss with a new team and a new direction.

Burgess says the business has been revitalised by the new appointments the company has made, hiring people from the wider world of food production, which includes Andrew Ovens and Mark Phillips.

Phillips joined Produce World earlier in the year as sales and marketing director, having previously held senior positions at Wellness Foods and Dairy Crest/Unigate.

And Ovens is now the commercial team’s marketing director, bringing with him over 20 years’ experience, with positions such as group marketing manager for New Covent Garden on his CV.

“The main change is that we’re running as one business rather than a number of subsidiary companies,” explains Burgess. “We’ve restructured the management team, which helped to take out considerable costs but also opened up an opportunity for new faces and new skills that has revitalised the business.

“It’s not been easy, and we’ve had some difficult conversations, but sometimes there’s a need for that. People that have left have gone on to do new things and new challenges.

“The restructuring has enabled us to shorten the decision-making process and the Produce World board is much closer to the action. We needed this in such challenging times of a stalling economy and the savvy shopper changing their purchasing habits; we had to look at the way we do business and look at the SKUs we’re presenting. It was the right thing to do and puts us in a strong position.”

Produce World, along with the majority of brassica and root crop growers, is indeed negotiating challenging times. It’s not just weather but also changing consumer habits, with convenience the leading trend. Produce World is investing heavily in finding solutions to these challenges and to make the most of the product they do have, such as the prepared area at its Isleham, in Ely, packhouse. Here the imperfect- looking vegetables are turned into produce for the ready meals and frozen market.

“While we have done all the major restructuring now and we’re focused on the new team, we’re not sitting still. We still need to keep innovating and looking for ways to improve the way we work,” says Burgess. “Previously, as our new chairman put it, we were monitoring the business rather than managing it and now that we’ve removed so many layers we can respond so much more quickly.

“This is especially important when dealing with our growers, who are key stakeholders in the business. If we were honest, when we took over Marshalls we thought the brassica industry was similar to the others we operated, and in some respects it is, but not in terms of the production area.

“The brassica industry is much more farmer led than consumer led. We tried to go along the lines of being totally consumer led and drag the farmers along kicking and screaming, and what we’ve realised is that we needed to do the reverse and focus on the farming, getting it working much more in harmony with the consumer side.”

Which is what Andrew Ovens is helping the business to achieve. He is putting into play his knowledge to assist with the developments of new products.

“Produce World benefits from having such a wide range of crops,” says Ovens. “That’s to our advantage because we can look at the whole vegetable category and really come up with some great products.”

Burgess himself has a new role in the company, taking on the position of director of farming in order to facilitate more communication with its portfolio of growers. “We’re in challenging times and we need to listen to them [the farmers], especially when going forwards there’s a lot of different opportunities for growers away from food production,” he adds.

“If you look at the production of energy crops, growers can get 20 years’ sustainable returns. There are a lot of growers who are viewing that as a bit of a pension but that’s putting competition on land and inevitably prices will go up as supply tightens. In the future, we could see supply chains competing with supply chains.

“I would encourage retailers to think about fruit and vegetable production in the same way as milk. There’s been a lot of positive things come out of the discussions around milk production and I would want to see more innovation and collaboration between growers, producers and retailers in this industry.

“I think the retailer that takes the lead on that will have a sustainable, competitive advantage over others. We’re already seeing an increase in competition for product this year with supply tightening up.

“But I don’t want to sound as though I’m putting it all on the shoulders of the retailers. I’d say that the message is getting through and with our own customers, we’ve seen them bend over backwards to work with us through the supply issues.

“There’s been a lot of collaboration on forecasting and monitoring the weather challenges, there’s been weekly dialogue around crop quality, availability and yields and in more detail than I’ve ever seen it during my time in the industry, which is very encouraging. We’ve been working on our own systems and contingency plans. We’re taking all our learnings and knowledge and fine tuning the way we work.

“And we’ve been investing heavily in order to manage supply demands, whether it’s new storage facilities or GPS technology.

“We’re all in this together and if we want to hit those targets of delivering more British-grown food, something the consumer is demanding, then we need to work collaboratively.”

The Burgess family are passionate about their business and it’s this interest that Jason wants to pass on, not just to his staff but to the wider public. “The public are gradually taking more interest in food production but one of the issues we have is that food production and farming has featured less on the curriculum over the past couple of decades and that’s been a mistake,” he says.

“As an industry we should be working hard on education and encouraging farm visits like when I was a child. We’re open to that as a business and consider that as a responsibility as a farming business.

“Right now we feel very strong as a business, even though we’ve been through some difficult times I think everyone here feels that buying Marshalls was the right thing to do and going forward it has brought a great deal to Produce World as a whole.” —