AV adds value to expand

A company that just six years ago counted spring onions as 90 per cent of its business, AV Produce now has a ?hard core? of 12 growers, primarily producing brassicas, leeks, salad onions, dwarf beans, iceberg and Little Gem lettuce.

We have come out on the right side of rationalisation and we like to believe that reflects our levels of service and commitment to our customers,? says managing director Dave Tasker. ?We are certainly on our own in Kent as a company of this size that has invested heavily in vegetable production.?

The investment in new facilities has been based on the trend towards added value products in the marketplace and the belief that there is further expansion to benefit from. ?There is the opportunity to expand on the back of that demand and once the consumer has got used to buying prepared products, they won?t want to go back,? says Tasker. ?We have made a big commitment here and we aim to drive the business forward and anticipate a similar rate of expansion in the future.?

The vast majority of the development process has been funded from within, but the final stages could not have happened without support and assistance from Defra, adds Tasker. ?Defra has been extremely helpful to us all the way through. They have put a lot of time into the project and given us sound advice at all stages.?

?We grow or have grown the basic whole-head product and we will also be looking to process that into our ready-to-cook range,? says general manager Paul Graves. ?It is a medium-care facility rather than high-care that AV concentrates on ? the products are cut and prepared but need washing by the end consumer before cooking. Take a bag of spring greens for instance. In the un-prepared form, 30-40 per cent of the product the consumer buys is cut and thrown away. We?re taking it one step further, shredding it and putting it in a pillow pack, which fits in with the needs of the cash rich, time poor consumer profile.?

Company secretary Jo Tasker is the fourth generation involved in the business, which began market gardening in the Swanley area in the first decade of the 20th century. In the mid-1980s, the company moved into packing for the supermarkets.

?We began to utilise our own assets better,? says Dave Tasker. ?And things have progressed rapidly since the beginning of the last decade. In 1990 we made our first big investment in the expansion of the business with a new washing plant. In 1995 we built our offices and in 1997 we constructed the first part of our modern packhouse/warehouse facility.?

In 2001, AV Produce moved onto the next stage of development, a three-phase project that involved a total investment of £1.6m, which will be completed in June. The first phase involved the redevelopment of AV?s existing packhouse and loading bay.

Phase two saw a new facility developed for inspecting and packing a greater range of products. Within this, a separate dedicated store for wholesale market product and new loading bays are being introduced. A shredding machine and multi-head weigher and vertical form fill & seal machine which are primarily being used for spring greens and curly kale, can be adapted for a number of lines as the added value side of the business expands and have vastly improved efficiency, according to Jane Le Jeune, site QC manager.

Phase three, which will be completed in the next couple of months, involves the implementation of state-of-the-art facilities for staff, including changing rooms, washing areas, laundry and canteen.

Mirroring the ambition of AV are its growers, many of whom have invested heavily to provide the products for which AV?s programmes guarantee a home. Swanley is a well-located hub, in the middle of a triangle connecting the M25, A20 (M20) and M2. ?Logistics has never been an issue, our lorries from the continent can be tracked and we know that deliveries will take place within 45 minutes of clearing Dover,? says Graves. ?Product is moving in the right direction all the time.?

Geoffrey Philpott is one of four cauliflower growers on the Isle of Thanet, where 60 unique varieties are produced and massive investment is being made in an on-going research programme. In all, Philpott produces more than 100 cauliflower varieties and concentrates on optimising the supply and demand balance across the year. ?We have the variety and quality you can?t get elsewhere,? says Philpott. ?AV Produce has the network of customers to sell the range through.

?We?ve built up a strong relationship with them and find that they try to understand us. In return we try to understand their needs. There is a good interchange of information between us and excellent personal relationships. We put programmes together with them and they have consistently shown that they will meet and often exceed those programmes. They seem to be expanding all the time and we are growing with them.?

J Castle in Stoke provides spring greens to AV Produce from the Isle of Grain. Brian Stone has sold product through AV for three years and says: ?They are a very good team of people to work with. I supply the spring greens into their packhouse and they QC it for the supermarket customer. It means I don?t have to invest in my own packhouse, which is also in line with the supermarkets wanting less packhouses. The focus on added value is also beneficial ? anything that adds value and sells more bags is good news for AV Produce and good news for me.?

?The growers supplying us share our commitment and passion for what we do,? says Tasker. ?Being growers in our own right and a century-old family-owned business creates an important affinity with suppliers.?

As an extension of that affinity, AV Produce, together with Somerfield have supported the ?Produced in Kent? initiative and, says Tasker: ?We would like to think that the ?Produced in Kent? logo on our cauliflowers can be seen on bags throughout the country. It identifies the product and from our growers? perspective it provides a focus.?

Graves adds: ?The growers know that it?s their cauliflower on the shelf, consumers know that it isn?t from France, Cornwall or Lincolnshire and that gives them an added incentive to ensure the highest quality is maintained. It puts them under more pressure, but it is positive pressure. In terms of cauliflower and spring greens, the ?Produced in Kent? logo is unique to us.

?Cornwall and Lincolnshire had pushed Kent into becoming almost a forgotten area for brassicas, and the logo has offered an opportunity to re-establish the county as a recognised source. Somerfield broke the mould and asked AV to establish a supply base in Kent, realising that they were perhaps too reliant on their Cornish and Lincolnshire sources. As in Cornwall, there are microclimates in the Isle of Thanet in Kent that allow for production during the winter.

?Because of their proximity to the London markets, the traditional cauliflower growers in Kent were amongst the last to switch their attention to the retail sector. Now growers on the Isle of Thanet can see that they have a valuable role to play in contributing to the year-round production of cauliflower for multiple retailers. All of our growing partners have invested like us in their businesses with a view to developing the added value retail category.?

There is a level playing field for all of AV?s growers, who are obliged to be meet Assured Produce Scheme criteria and there is more than enough capacity at the now extended packhouse. Decisions on the extent of AV?s involvement are made depending on the comparative strengths of each grower.

?We are growers ourselves, with 400 acres in production, and we therefore understand the potential problems and issues facing our grower partners,? says Tasker. ?There is no fixed format to working with us. The idea is that we utilise their assets to the full and not put extra constraints on them. Growers can rent us their land; we can drill, apply sprays and harvest for them. We have all the packhouse facilities and growers can supply us with the raw product, but if a grower already has the capacity and ability to carry out part of the packaging process, we will do the rest.?

AV supplies Somerfield, Morrison, Aldi, Kwik Save and Lidl and also has a significant wholesale market business, for which a dedicated cold storage unit has been constructed. ?We still sell through the wholesale markets and recognise that there is no room for second class produce. The demands of the supermarkets have raised the standard of produce in the general market and the wholesale markets have to compete with that,? says Tali Atvars, AV Produce?s trading director.

First and foremost, the company is a supplier of English brassica, legumes and salad products. It is an importer of sizeable volumes, but the product is complementary rather than supplementary to its English offer. ?Our relationship with our growers in Spain is as strong as with our English growers,? says Tasker. ?Obviously there are times of year when we need to import to ensure 12-month continuity, but we do not bring in produce when we have English available.

?This gives our growers a chance to expand their businesses, it gives our customers the option to keep British produce on the shelves for a greater proportion of the year and their customers will hopefully appreciate the opportunity to buy it. It represents a long-term commitment to our growers.?

The company has a joint venture operation in Lincolnshire and as well as importing from Spain, works with growers in Italy, Egypt, Mexico, Portugal, France and occasionally from Holland and Belgium.

Atvars brought a Spanish supply base with him when he joined AV in 1999 and has developed the overseas procurement side of AV.

While 80 per cent of the product that flows through the packhouse is produced from within its own supply base, the company has also made itself available for contract or third party packing, and Graves believes packing for supermarkets other than the core network of customers is beneficial in widening the scope of knowledge of the staff.

?We have a broad spectrum of roles,? he says. ?Our customers fit well into our business and do not compromise our ambitions. The full-time employees get exposure to other customers and ways of packing, broadening their understanding of the industry as a whole.?

AV Produce has placed a great deal of emphasis on staff development and been rewarded with long-term commitment to the cause from its 19 full-time employees. It is an ?Investor in People?, which involves commitment to advance its employees? careers. It is also part of the group of companies that takes management trainees from the Management Development Services (MDS) scheme and currently has harvest manager Sion Edwards on board. ?In a company of our size, everyone has a significant role to play,? says Tasker. ?There is a fair amount of flexibility and cross-over and that leads to a close-knit team. Through MDS we have an opportunity to put something back into the industry. But it is not only training for the trainee, it adds something to our business and gives us an opportunity to recruit someone who has been through the scheme.?

One of Edwards? tasks is to manage a team of Concordia students during the first year that AV has used the service. Close control of the management of the harvest has enabled the reduction of pullers from 65 to 45, with a similar volume arriving at the packhouse after each day?s work. ?There are two ways to increase your returns, either increase your prices or improve your efficiency,? says Tasker. ?We have put in place a lot of things within the business that have achieved the latter.?

The packhouse is BRC accredited and, says Graves: ?This is the norm now for supermarket packers and, while it does involve some expense, it can be used to your advantage. A lot of the elements are good for personnel development and it can never hurt to have a third party auditing your business.?

Further illustration of the company?s desire to better itself and take advantage of the external opportunities open to it, AV was also involved in the pilot project for the Defra-funded benchmarking scheme, as reported in the Journal on April 11. ?We were one of 10 companies in the pilot scheme and hopefully Defra?s decision to provide further funding was based on the results. Everyone in the industry needs feedback, otherwise how do you know what level you are at and where you actually stand and where improvements are needed??

AV Produce knows where it stands and £1.6m says it is confident of what that means for its long-term future.