In 2001, the two masterminds behind Turners PPL took a bold step in establishing themselves as a third-party packaging operation. Now, five years down the line, they are taking another giant step forward by investing in a multi-million pound cold-storage facility, which will increase the company’s overall storage by almost half.
Strictly speaking, this time the risk falls largely outside the hands of Gavin Knight and David Bateman, the men at the helm of Turners PPL. As of December 4 last year, Turners PPL was fully bought out by Turners to become a division of the renowned distributing company. As such it is Paul Day, md of Turners of Soham, taking the considerable leap of faith in his decision to invest so much money in the duo’s vision, which Knight is only too quick to recognise.
“There aren’t many people actively putting up buildings anymore. It is a brave move to invest £9 million into a business which is so difficult to make pay,” he says. “It is therefore a definite indication of where he wants the business to go.” And with its fleet of 1,000 lorries, 17 depots and nearly 1,500 employees, Turners of Soham is a highly valuable support system to have on one’s doorstep and on one’s side, he suggests.
Building work is underway at the Suffolk site to construct what Knight describes as “a state-of-the-art dual-purpose cold store incorporating frozen, chilling and picking facilities”.
The new building, which is due to be up and running by April, will cover 140,000 square feet. This equates to a total 5.75 million cubic feet of storage space, with a capacity to hold 21,000 pallets - bringing the site’s total storage to 14m cubic ft, or 60,000 pallets.
A key aspect of the new design is flexibility, Knight emphasises. “All chambers of the warehouse - five in total - can all go down as low as -25°C or up to an ambient temperature,” he explains. “That is rare and very expensive. It will also have a mixture of mobile and static racking.” In addition, the architect has left an opening for further expansion by designing the facility with the possibility of enlarging it further by as much as fifty per cent again.
Turners PPL has earned an enviable reputation for its consolidation and packing expertise in the realm of citrus, with MMUK (Muñoz Mehadrin), Tesco’s category manager, and Israeli brand Jaffa specialist MTEX, listed among its main clients. The company stores, grades and re-packs in excess of nine million boxes a year, from all sources, to bring it to a level capable of meeting retail specifications.
However, Knight is quick to highlight that all other produce types could benefit from Turners PPL’s unique stance and extensive range of services. “Unlike other similar companies who pack for themselves as well as others, we are non-trading which means we are purely independent,” he claims. “There is a real shortage of good quality storage on consolidation sites, which has the advantage of being the least-cost option,” he suggests. “With all these lorries on our doorstep all the haulage costs are cheaper. We can save companies approximately £2-3 per pallet, which is an awful lot when you think about the kind of numbers we are dealing with.”
MMUK citrus director, Jonathan Hedge, readily testifies to the convenience of the set-up at Turners PPL. “We are just down the corridor from them in Soham so there is continuous communication between our two companies,” he says. “We have worked with Turners PPL since the creation of the company and since then we have worked jointly to remove cost from the supply chain to Tesco, striving to make the supply of citrus more cost-efficient for the retailer and get better returns to the grower. It works very well for us.”
Dov Warman, at MTEX UK, also highlights the company’s professional attitude and willingness to demonstrate its activities to visitors from Israel. “MTEX’s confidence in the future is much brighter in the knowledge that Turners PPL is loyally supporting and securing the business,” he adds.
As such, while the future looks bright, it may not necessarily be wholly orange. “At the moment we are predominantly working with citrus but we are looking to diversify,” Knight says. “Any new contracts in the future will not be citrus as we would not want to compromise our current clients’ business by offering the unique advantages to our clients’ competitors.” As well as allowing the desired diversification, expansion is the fundamental key to survival in this industry, Knight claims. “Our aim is to compound our needs,” he says. “In this business of low margins it is all about critical mass for anyone to succeed. The idea behind this new facility is building for the future. We have to get bigger and the beauty of this site is there is room for that. It is close to the ports, we are away from the expenses of London and everyone here has a lot of experience in produce.”
Knight is under no illusions about the challenges ahead for all in the world of produce packaging, but he is equally convinced that, if any company is going to survive, Turners PPL has a pretty good shot. “I think people with their own site are going to find it increasingly difficult to make it pay,” he concludes. “Supplier rationalisation will continue and being impartial in the market is a great solution for a lot of people. We are not going to revolutionise the whole produce industry but the fact is there’s a point of difference here.”
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