As I approach Spalding, on the last leg of a train journey from King’s Cross fraught with delays and various dramas, the flat plains, rich black soils and sporadically placed white wind turbines are a reassuring sign that I am finally going to reach my destination. Quite a few times during this bitterly cold November day, I question the concept of what I am doing: this could have been done from a warm office in London, surely? I quickly pull myself together and remember my purpose - to provide an insight into the day-to-day life of individuals along the fresh produce supply chain. What better way to do that than to experience it first hand?
We begin with the first part of the supply chain, a seed company, and Elsoms’ crop specialist Keely Watson. Within the first five minutes of Watson collecting me from the station, I realise that her role as crop specialist doesn’t really say the half of it. She jokes that I should be pleased that I hadn’t chosen the day before to shadow her, as she had gone from sorting out the new branding for the company to harvesting a white cabbage trial for two and a half hours in a temperature of 1°C - putting my earlier woes into perspective somewhat.
Starting with Elsoms, which is the sole UK distributor for Dutch seed house Bejo in the UK, as a trainee crop specialist three years ago, Watson’s position has been extremely varied. As well as being a salesperson and offering advice to customers, now mostly in the amateur market but initially in brassicas, Watson is an internal auditor for the ISO1001 accreditation, in charge of the administration for UK seed production for Bejo, compiles reports on what’s new in the retailers and is heavily involved in putting together Elsoms’ all important annual open days in October. Her job has developed so organically that there isn’t really a title that encapsulates what Watson does, but as she puts it: “it’s not the job title that’s important, it’s what I actually do that is”.
At 26, Watson is what the industry would term as young blood and is a fully fledged member of the new generation who actually wanted a career in horticulture or agriculture, having grown up in a predominantly agricultural area of the UK -in a little village near Oundle. Not scared of a bit of hard work by any means, after reading Plant Biology at Birmingham University and completing a couple of temporary stints in various production sectors, Watson took a summer job harvesting and then found the position at Elsoms in November the same year.
I remark that this was quick, considering the problems that graduates have experienced over the last couple of years in finding the right - and in fact any - kind of employment in their chosen sphere. “Lucky,” she responds very swiftly.
“It was all before Northern Rock fell out the market,” adds Watson, “but the climate was changing rapidly the year I graduated. Birmingham University conducts a survey every year to track how many graduates achieve employment the year they graduate. My year was the first to see graduates still out of relevant work by the time the following year was graduating.”
One of Watson’s first assignments with Elsoms was to record the brassica trials and work on the open days, and then she took up the challenge of compiling growers’ basic crop sheet guides, which she admits was as much a learning exercise for her as a task. “My passion is in the growing,” she tells me. “I grow my own vegetables at home and I love to see the process from seed to plant to crop.” And so, this is the part of the job that she takes me to first.
First stop is a commercial nursery in Spalding, part of which Elsoms rents to produce commercial seed for Bejo. Watson visits these kinds of sites once or twice a year to carry out tests and make sure that all is running smoothly. “I have gone through the rouging process and helped in the past, so I understand what our staff do here,” she says. Rouging is basically making sure the plant types stay true to the two parent lines.
“Once you’ve done it, you’ll recognise the type and it’s very rare to have an off type,” she adds. As we walk through the glasshouses, she explains how the seeds for future reproduction from the seed houses in the Netherlands are produced. In the case of cabbages, to take the example in front of us, the plants are grown to their full size and then left to flower -or literally go to seed. Then the flower is trained upwards with string and harvested off the seeds. Like me, Watson hadn’t really thought about the process before she saw it happen in front of her. “It’s not quite as bad as thinking milk comes from Tesco, but it really isn’t something that the average person on the street considers,” she says.
Once the seeds are harvested by Elsoms from the various sites that cover around eight hectares, they are sent back to the Netherlands for further testing. Watson added this role to her workload a year into the job. “It keeps me involved in the crops,” she explains. “The great thing is that I learn something new every day and have a company that believes in me. Every time something has been added to my role it has happened at the right time and I have been ready and willing to take it on. Every time I have needed a new challenge, it has been presented to me.”
As a sales person, having a well rounded background of knowledge about the crops and the marketplace obviously helps give Elsoms’ customers a better service, Watson muses as we walk around the trials. “We understand when there are shortages and can explain why we can’t supply something,” she adds. “If we can’t source the seeds then we have to say. We can’t just hope the situation will correct itself. We have to be honest and be ready with a sensible alternative.”
When Watson started at Elsoms, she made a point of visiting all the company’s seed growers, because as she says, “it helps future relationships when you make an effort”. “All relationships, work or otherwise, are based on trust,” says Watson. “We are dealing with our customers’ livelihoods here.”
Back at Elsoms’ Spalding office, Watson explains that she holds a set number of customer accounts, which include making sure that Elsoms sells the expected amount of seeds and that all orders are dispatched. Although the site is large and contains not only offices but trial sites, seed treating and research facilities, as well as the main storage and distribution centre for the UK, it still has an intimate feel to it. In the vegetable sales office, the mood is cheery yet focused, with the usual tea rounds and day-to-day conversations abounding.
Watson sits next to her line manager, John Constable, and they seem to get on, with him joking that sometimes the open plan nature of the office gets a bit much regarding noise levels. Sitting here listening to everyone on the phones, it almost sounds like they’re speaking a different language, with code names for each variety and similar names for different vegetable types. Purple sprouting broccoli goes under red wine names, which felt oddly reassuring, yet a little concerning when Constable says, “no, we’ve phased out Bordeaux”.
“I have just been sorting the contracts for growers as trial work and growing in the fields does calm down over winter time, so that fits in with other jobs like the post-Christmas sales peak, especially for the amateur market,” Watson tells me.
The atmosphere in the office warms up towards lunch and I find out that Elsoms is still very much a close family company, where the building actually shuts, complete with ‘closed’ sign on the door, for an hour. If you call, the out-of-office answer machine will be on.
After lunch and a brief conversation about the fact that Watson finds time outside of work to be in both a rowing and tennis club, as well as a brass band that has just finished recording an album, we’re back to the facility and making sure orders from customers have gone as they should. Walking through the massive warehouse, piled high with sacks of seed, Watson explains that sometimes customers want their seeds in a hurry and so she’ll need to check with the staff in the warehouse that it’s possible, but usually the delivery can be with them within 24 hours from placing the order.
“I don’t like getting things wrong,” says Watson. “If you don’t care about your job then I don’t think you should be there. I am a busy person and I like to take on a challenge. You can’t cope in this industry if you haven’t got the energy for it. If you’re not 100 per cent focused, you can’t maintain it.”
The concept of having a job for life has been somewhat lost over the last couple of decades and I ask Watson how she sees her future. “I think I’m the most recent through the door by a long shot,” she says, pointing out that most of her colleagues have been at Elsoms for as long as 20 years. “Horticulture is a small industry and I’m not about to jump companies for the sake of it. My role continues to vary and some of the things I am doing are completely different from what I was doing three years ago. If it continues to be varied, there will be no reason to move on.”
Again, Watson describes herself as “lucky”, but it became increasingly clear throughout the day I spent with her that she is one of those people who create their own luck at every turn.
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