Certis held its annual luncheon at the House of Commons on Wednesday and received the support of a gaggle of MPs, as well as its own local MP Robert Key, who hosted the event.

Guests covering a wide cross-section of the horticulture industry listened to four speakers between courses, who all spoke about their businesses and how their experiences related to a central theme of 'Adapt or die: Making the market work for you'.

One of those speakers was Harry Hall of the Wokingham-based Hall Hunter Partnership, who said that through a process of solving marketing challenges as the industry and economy has evolved, his family's 110 acre arm, purchased in 1966, has become successful.

He described the changes that HHP has gone through in its transition from wholesale market supplier and pick-your-own, farm shop and plant centre, to supplying Waitrose with 50-60 per cent of its strawberries and raspberries between May and September.

Hall pinpointed 1994-98 as the company's transitionary period from vegetable producer for packhouses supplying supermarkets and p-y-o into a fully-fledged supermarket supplier of soft fruit.

'The experience of supplying packhouses for supermarkets with vegetables and running a p-y-o put us in a good position to switch to soft fruit supermarket supply,' he said. 'The impact of weather on the p-y-o business, my lack of desire to deal so closely with the general public and the inability to gain volume sales turned me away from p-y-o. We were looking for a high value crop which gave us a good percentage of the final selling price and brought us closer to the customer.

'Soft fruit, when sold to the supermarkets, allows the opportunity for a turnover of £30,000/acre. This gives a large scope to gain a good margin. In comparison we grew potatoes which turned over £2,000/acre. In simple terms we had to change or die, we had no choice.' HHP forged a partnership with marketer BerryWorld, the category supplier of soft fruit to Waitrose and by 1998 was producing 250 tonnes of strawberries and 20t of raspberries. Five years on, this season it is forecast to produce 1,500t of strawberries and 300t of raspberries and is one of the top three growers in the country.

Hall stressed the need for companies to develop a competitive advantage and devote their attentions to sustaining it. 'As I gain experience I become more aware of the potential pitfalls to failure. Naturally one looks for the safe haven of consolidation or even selling the business. For me though, whilst I continue to trade the word consolidation is one that scares meSshould we fail in business at HHP I would hope it was a result of changing/growing too quickly rather than being left behind.'

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