RB Organics, part of the Produce World group, has been in existence for more than three years, and in this time has become a leader in the organics root vegetables market.
The UK organic root vegetable market has not only increased in size in the last five years, but also in maturity. Andrew Burgess, agronomy director of RB Organics, explains: “Compared to five years ago, we are much more reliable in our yields and quality, areas which are improving every year. We ensure that we work with our grower group as a team, in a totally transparent way. We work with the best growers, and ensure they are given strong support for development.”
Burgess believes RB Organics sustains leadership in the market by not only forming close relationships with its growers, but also employing many experts who lead the field in areas such as crop expertise. Together they work to ensure that the produce supplied is of the highest quality. RB Organics also has specialist facilities, which are applied to the organic system.
“Being a market leader gives RB Organics a fantastic platform for learning,” says Burgess. “We then take these lessons and apply the appropriate organic growing techniques into our standard production. This way we are constantly improving, learning and as a result we are providing our customers with top quality organic produce.”
RB Organics works with 12 growers over 700 acres of root vegetables, including carrots, parsnips, swedes and potatoes. “In the UK we start our season in Suffolk, progressing through to the Midlands and finally Scotland. This enables us to get the best spread and means we can supply out of the UK for 10 and a half months. We have two growers in Spain and one in Italy to make up the full 12-months supply,” says Burgess.
RB Organics is continually developing its grower base. “In terms of agronomy and support our growers are very much involved,” says Burgess. “We try and come up with joint solutions and are very open. To work in that kind of way you can’t have too many people.”
Virtually all the company’s production is pre-packed. “We’ve moved into the pillow-pack format for some of our lines,” says Burgess, “and we’re now looking at compostable films. The problem is that the technology is still very new and not yet proven and it is also very expensive.”
Last summer’s heat caused minor problems with the crops. “There were a few problems with the skin smoothness,” Burgess explains. “Because of the heat growing was a stop-start affair, but this also happened with conventional. This didn’t mean we had difficulties maintaining the continuinty of supply. At one stage we had lots of small growers and production tended to be an ad-hoc affair, but now we have good planning and forecasting in place and it’s a much more professional arena. Next year we will be upping our acreage slightly and will be carrying on our work in certain areas of crop development in order to improve yields and quality. This year we expect to run UK carrots and parsnips until the end of April, and we also started the season six weeks earlier than normal on June 26. This meant we were 100 per cent UK from day one and we are hoping to be able to repeat that this year.
“Organic produce provides the consumer with great flavour, as well as peace of mind that they are eating naturally. It also gives them the knowledge that they are helping the environment, a key concern for many shoppers today. There is, however, a lack of awareness that organic produce is a lot cheaper than it used to be, and so that can prove to be a barrier. From a producer’s point of view, the biggest issue now is the commercial pressure brought by the retailers in terms or prices - we are having to fight out corner all the time.”
Burgess believes that new legislation concerning the production of GM foods will strengthen consumer demand for organics. “Consumers don’t want GM foods,” he says. “It will be a long time before we see GM production in vegetables on a commercial scale in the UK.”
RB Organics is developing and looking for ways to improve quality of produce and service to its customers. Developments this year include the installing of a new washline - an investment of more than £1.2 million, which can de-stone, wash and grade twenty tonnes of organic carrots and eight tonnes of organic parsnips in just one hour. This will further improve the efficiency of RB Organics, enabling it to provide a better service to its customers
Burgess concludes: “The other elements of Produce World were established when we started up three years ago. This gave us financial stability whilst we established the business. They also give us access to capital for investment, such as the new washline.”
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