Known for its thriving glasshouse sector producing tomatoes, lettuce, peppers and aubergines, vegetables, soft fruit - in particular strawberries and raspberries - herbs and cut flowers, Sussex has a long history when it comes to fresh produce. Once a centre for rose production, the rose nurseries have paved the way for salad production.
According to the West Sussex Growers’ Association’s (WSGA) 2010 report, Growing Together, the glasshouse sector in that area alone produces crops to an estimated retail value of £500 million, with the rose industry declining to pretty much nothing.
The region has seen a sure and steady restructure of the industry, with many of the once commonplace family-run nurseries being replaced by much larger units that provide better economies of scale, while new concepts such as combined heat and power (CHP), anaerobic digestion and solar power are slowly but surely being introduced.
Feeling the heat
“We have been looking at CHP but it is not easy to connect to the national grid, and there is very little encouragement in this country,” says Chris Wall, managing director of Eric Wall Ltd, in Barnham, West Sussex, which has been growing tomatoes in an area known for its horticultural use for 34 years. With 28 acres under glass, a further 3a in Deal, Kent, and construction underway on another 6a glasshouse at the original site, the business has expanded steadily and not encountered the problems with planning permission and local perception that other regions have. “It’s more a problem that we do not get the support we need regarding technology, as there have been glasshouses on this land since the 1960s,” says the Waitrose and Sainsbury’s supplier. “I have no idea why the government backtracked by cutting the Feed-in Tariff Scheme [which gave businesses grants to install solar photovoltaic panels that would feed energy back into the national grid] and why isn’t CHP more on the agenda? The horticulture industry and the demand for heat and CO2 led very well to CHP, but it costs so much to link up to the grid.”
The WSGA is on the case to make sure that the region continues to be sustainable and has the government backing it is entitled to. As the association’s 2010 report puts it, the area needs “a continued focus on R&D and access to expertise and facilities to allow UK growers to remain at the forefront of world production; access to sufficient labour through a new SAWS scheme and schemes to encourage British nationals to take up seasonal work; and [needs to] reflect the importance of food security in national planning policy”.
“The region’s fresh produce industry is still feeling the absence of the Feed-in Tariff, which could have been a large profit, but the coalition government put a stop to it,” says WSGA’s John Hall, who also acts as a business consultant. “The government should have stuck to its guns - growers would have stuck to it and we would have hundreds of solar farms in the making. The UK would have 10 per cent of its energy provided by solar in no time at all.”
But Hall believes that West Sussex is the place to grow salad products, with great light levels in the winter, especially in Bognor Regis. The association’s report, in conjunction with Business Link and Step Head Research Ltd, is the first stage towards an implementation plan to be published in September 2011. Now funded by the WSGA, the plan will aim to develop horticultural hubs and energy hubs, alongside establishing suitable land, water for irrigation, local development frameworks and other issues such as job security, training and road improvements.
Ready for transformation
The marketers of fresh produce in Sussex are moving with the times as well. With farmers’ markets, independent retailers and deli-type shop formats having a keen following among consumers, a more condensed and accessible Brighton Fruit & Flower Market - which moved to an industrial site on Crowhurst Corner two years ago - has seen orders maintained with innovative sale concepts and vertical marketing and collaboration with farmers.
Family wholesaler TG Fruits took on a new perspective when the management of the company moved to the new generation of the family, with brothers and cousins Andrew, Verne and Tom Griffiths. The team has not only started to work with growers to improve its image within the trade and its packaging, but its is also providing a handheld/smartphone version of the company’s ‘new in’ list.
“It’s effectively an email that can be accessed through your smartphone and order on line,” says Andrew. “Every week, I take photos of and describe the new products we have in and it’s very efficient. They can make the decision to order over email or come in to have a further look.”
This system has made sure that TG Fruits has stayed in touch with customers that may have been inclined to move away from wholesale. “We do a lot of work with Budgens and The Co-operative in this area and if we want to sell to the managers, then we have to be available nine to five,” says Andrew, who set up the system. “They can email us at one push of a button. We hold prices and run the stock for a week, and provide all the information they need. It has transformed our business and we have improved by 30-40 per cent in turnover. It’s another way to sell to people.”
The wholesaler has also been doing a lot of work with growers to push their product for the good of the whole supply chain. Kent grower RC Manfield of Lynsted Nurseries teamed up with TG Fruits to create a new way of packaging its strawberries that would also display the product in its best light in the wholesale market. “We worked together well,” says Andrew, who thinks that companies should work together vertically through the supply chain more. “It doesn’t happen enough. Producers do a great job of growing, but aren’t that great sometimes at getting the goods to the store or singing their own praises.”
Another product that has just come into the wholesale market is Besmoked’s smoked garlic. The West Sussex-based company works with a Lincolnshire garlic farmer to produce smoked garlic, which is becoming popular with caterers and chefs. “The straw holds the garlic in place and it has a flip top lid that creates a façade to advertise the product on,” says Andrew. “It’s ready to go to the shop and it’s a hit with the local retailers.”
Expect the unexpected
Sussex is also home to Europe’s largest production of nematodes at biocontrol firm Becker Underwood in Littlehampton. The biological beneficials are microscopic worms that actively locate their prey - in this case, the growers’ enemy, slugs - and then dissolve them from inside. They are doubly effective as the slugs sense they are near and so move away from the growers’ product before the nematodes catch up with them.
“Nematodes work as well as chemicals, but are simply biological,” explains Mike Finney, European sales manager at Becker Underwood, which was born out of the now closed government-funded Horticultural Research International at Littlehampton, and now uses its research on a commercial level. “This is a six- to eight-month production and we sell the nematodes in a restive stage, when they have matured and are ready to act. Refrigerated, they have a four-week shelf life.
“We have a long history of horticulture in the area and a lot of investment has gone into this process. The nematodes process is particularly suited to lettuce growers, which is very good for growers in this area, but our product goes out to growers throughout Europe.”
Support throughout the supply chain is also found in companies like Landmark Systems, based in Pulborough, West Sussex. Set up in 1987 by Harper Adams’ business graduate Nigel Parsons, with support and encouragement of Sussex dairy and arable farmer Jim Harrison, Landmark provides accounting IT solutions to UK horticultural businesses.
A new program KEYPrime was launched this year which has been developed to encompass the latest technology whilst keeping the ease of use, flexibility and power of management reporting that the KEY accounting software is renowned for throughout the agricultural and property sectors .
Managing director Nigel Parsons says that from the large scale wholesale grower to the farm shop owners need to be on top of their finances and to know which enterprises are running profitably. The ability to spot at a glance a ‘one-off rogue’ figure or a trend, for example an unusually high labour cost or a failing product line, can make a big difference to a producer’s bottom line.
“The Landmark culture is one of service and support,” says Nigel Parsons. “The KEY programs have the sort of functionality that is expected by some of the larger, more demanding growers but fundamentally we also offer users a dedicated telephone support line, training on-site and a good source of information and support on our website.”
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