Following a period where there was an emphasis on growth, financial and historic yield data analysis highlighted some areas of Greens of Soham were less profitable and proving to be a distraction.
That’s according to the firm’s farming director Greg Colebrook, who says as such, they went back to basics. “We looked at what we excelled in and removed the aspects we were less good at, whether that be varieties, soil types or crop types.”
Not only did that mean focusing solely on potatoes and red beet, but also simplifying what was grown, stopping higher risk activities, while continuing to innovate. “We dropped some potatoes grown for long-term storage and on soil types that are difficult to manage. The cost and risks of these crops wasn’t being rewarded,” adds Greg.
Shifting focus
Wireworm in particular is a challenge, which led to the business pivoting away from some rented land blocks. Instead, more focus has been placed on salad potatoes on Breckland soils which are direct supplied. “Our USP [unique selling point] with these is we can always harvest through the summer, and maintain a good capacity to serve lots of customers during that period.”
The second largest market for the enterprise after salad potatoes is seed. Greg says most of these crops are now grown in Northumberland and Scotland to reduce virus risk while helping to bring high quality seed into the business.
“We have a good understanding of the quality we’re growing – higher health status seed is one of the factors we consider for yield improvement along with varieties, irrigation management and cultivations.”
No longer growing the lowest performing 5% of varieties would perhaps be the easiest way for the business to improve average yields, he points out. “There’s more than a 100% difference between the best and worst – that range is too big.”
Rationalisation
But rationalising variety choice isn’t easy, with long-term decisions required within seed production, he raises. “We’re growing fewer varieties that we did, but across all the different crop types it’s still 30 plus varieties, rather than the 50 we used to grow.
“We’re very specific about either growing a variety we can market more widely, or being tied into a supply chain where the end user, ourselves and the variety are all linked.”
According to Greg, both routes have advantages – a relationship growing a unique variety ties the customer into any problems so Greens isn’t managing that risk alone. Equally, a variety the business can sell more widely can be selected based on yield, quality and marketability attributes which Greens can assess.
The disadvantages are the risk of if a variety isn’t given exclusivity, it doesn’t get used, while partnering with the wrong customer can leave the variety going nowhere, notes Greg.
Attention to detail
It might be easier to grow 1300ha of potatoes with a blanket approach, but it’s attention to detail that brings success, he says. “We’re bespoke with how we grow each crop and make decisions based on what’s best for that crop on that soil type.”
The firm works closely with its landlords to manage decisions which affect the potato crop, whether that’s irrigation – where Greens is taking on management that traditionally would have been the landlord’s responsibility – cultivations or cover crops.
Decisions regarding cover crop species and destruction timings are often made in collaboration, particularly with various schemes incentivising landowners to include them in rotations, shares Greg. “In the past we might have drilled them ourselves at our own risk and cost. Now it’s more advice to avoid unintended consequences.”
Mitigating wireworm pressure remains particularly important, he says, with a short brown bridge between cereal harvest and cover crop drilling, plus a decent kill before potato planting in the spring, helping to reduce risk.
Greens also partners with landlords on long-term infrastructure projects, for example storage, which guarantees the landlord an income while giving Greens some decision-making power. “We’re looking for long-term relationships which are sustainable rather than transactional,” comments Greg.
Innovative approaches
As with any successful business, innovation is also at the fore – Greens has been involved in projects in the processing sector using low carbon fertilisers to understand the practicalities of growing crops with slow-release type products, while it’s also investigated different planting patterns after successfully innovating a similar change in its beetroot crop.
“We’re keen on the idea of a 50cm quad arrangement where every potato is exactly 50cm away from each other. But the cost of developing bespoke machinery is a barrier, while we also can’t afford to fail on any of the area we grow because of the tight margins we operate under,” he concludes.
