Produce Times - October 2022

Welcome from the CEO

The world in which we live is forever changing and ongoing challenges are impacting the economies of almost every country globally with the UK being no different.

There has also been much change internally, with the departure of Gary Urmston to Troy Foods, Andy Clarkson to Total Produce (both looking for a fresh challenge), and Bethan Scaife who has decided to move on. All great colleagues, and I wish them all well in their new careers. We have seen some restructuring in Greenvale with a new leadership team of David Rankin, Phil McCaul, Lynn Murdoch and Niall Arbuckle now in place. This is great to see and brings a fresh approach. The Duns site has also seen the departure of several colleagues during August, many of whom had served the business extremely well through the years, and I wish every one of them success in the future.

The 2022 financial year end has now passed, and work is underway on the audit under the supervision of Rachel Cook Coulson (Interim FD following Gary’s departure). Performance is below budget group wise with only Rowe Farming exceeding target, but all financial obligations have been met so we enter a new year with fresh ambition and purpose.

Rachel and I have successfully concluded a refinance process with HSBC bank which sees the groups banking facilities extended by three years from May 2023 to May 2026. This is an excellent result in an economic environment where so much uncertainty exists.

These are challenging times on a global basis for both individuals and businesses, and the coming winter promises to be a difficult one. We are fortunate in that our businesses are involved in primary food production and supply (including storage), and the production of the lowest cost, best value flower offering that exists. While many products will struggle, demand for ours should be secure. However, there can be no room for complacency, with every cost open to challenge, and collectively we need to stay focused and committed to the hard work that lies ahead. Thank you for your continued efforts.

Angus Armstrong Chief Executive

Meet the new recruit…

Say hello to Stuart Caroline who recently joined Greenvale as our Group HSE Manager. We caught up with him to get an insight into his role and what he gets up to outside of work.

Stuart Caroline

Group HSE Manager

As Group Head of Health and Safety it is my responsibility to understand, challenge and seek to improve safety standards within the Group in line with legislative requirements and “best practice” to drive a continuous improvement philosophy in all areas across our 2 manufacturing sites, the remote sites as well as the Growing Team, guiding both Site and Board level leadership teams to support the shaping of the Health & Safety agenda, ensuring a positive Health and Safety culture throughout our business.

What attracted you to Greenvale?

It was the challenge of leading the Groups health and safety agenda and aligning the sites to one set of standards and the opportunity to make Greenvale the sector leader in health and safety performance.

Where did you work before Greenvale?

I was Health and Safety Manager for Dominos Pizza looking after the southern Region.

How are you finding us?

From my first day I have found the whole Greenvale AP team to be warm, friendly, and welcoming with a nice friendly and relaxed atmosphere making it a great place to work. Any surprises so far?

Learning from the Growing Team about the science that goes in to growing potatoes.

What will be your main focus over the nextsix months?

I will be updating our Health & Safety Management System & Accident Reporting Processes with the aim of making things easier to find & more pragmatic to use as well as looking at how we measure our health & safety performance.

What do you do outside of work?

My main hobby is building kit cars (not the model ones). I am currently restoring a Triumph Spartan Roadster.

Favourite Food: Coming from Grimsby my favourite food is fish and chips, but it must be haddock. Favourite Drink: Cappuccino and Coke.

Favourite Sport: Football, I support Grimsby Town (obviously) & West Ham United.

Favourite holiday destination and why?

Pakistan – Having worked out there and because my wife is Pakistani but there is so much more to the country than most people realise. I love getting in to the local culture & shopping areas that most people would not see.

Favourite Singer/Group:

I don’t have a favourite singer or group but I have songs that inspire me and that have created memories along the way.

Favourite Film: The Italian Job.

Learning & Development Update

Mandy Towler (Learning & Development Officer)

Congratulations to the Senior Team Leaders and Safety Champions from the Floods Ferry site that all passed the IOSH Managing Safely course: Aleksandrs Vidergolds, Arvydas Kaskonas Brown, Karlis Akmenkalns, Mark Southerland, Romualdas Ginkus, Vytautas Tauras. Good those who are next to attend the training!

We are still progressing through the higher level training programme for the Engineers and Matthew McGann (Floods Ferry) is starting his City & Guilds 2323 course on 5th September. Good luck to Matt. Further updates to follow.

The L&D team are currently working to implement the training management system, where all training and development will be logged. This system is due to be released later this year. We look forward to sharing it with the teams.

If anyone has any ideas for development or training, please do contact me or a member of the HR team.

Getting a bit TECHNICAL!

Here’s a look at what has been happening in our Technical function… Jersey’s Haul by Judy Yarwood (Quality & Compliance Manager)

Whilst the Jersey season has ended, there are significant ‘behind the scenes’ work activities still being carried out at Peacock Farm and indeed across the Island. Our farming teams are still busy dealing with our own grown seed, land availability, staffing and that’s without mentioning daffodils! Not too far in the coming months the teams will be starting to plant our indoor crop. The very dry summer presented challenges for staff working outdoors dealing with heat, then the quality of the crop gave us issues to work through. Being my first season in Jersey, I can say with awe, all the teams, worked incredibly hard to get the potatoes to our customers.

There are still multiple evaluations post season to be carried out, but some much needed annual leave is playing out, and why not. One such review, is that of our accreditations haul. For the first time this season, Jersey achieved Waitrose AIB and Global Gap at top scoring levels, to add to our repertoire. Overall, we have nine different standards to work through, which results in 7 audits in just 4 months! A hearty Thank You to everyone who contributed to the successful outcome of all 7 audits.

Greenvale Carbon Project

Our customers have set ambitious targets to reduce carbon emissions, not only within their own operations but with an increasing focus on their supply chains too. Alongside this, we have been scoping out our own environmental agenda to follow on from the success of Green20, and with that trying to navigate through various carbon foot printing tools and software to find one that suits our business and our supply chains. Mapping and understanding these footprints is complicated, but to meet our customers long term objectives we need to start the process now after all 2030 is only one crop rotation away!

From this autumn we will be working with Trinity Agtech to map the environmental impact of our business and supply chain, starting with carbon footprint. Trinity have developed a very practical and user friendly on line tool which will enable us to map the carbon footprint of our factories and growing operations to establish baseline data and identify our carbon hotspots. The tool will also enable us to examine mitigation and reduction strategies and ultimately set carbon reduction targets and define best practice. We will also work with a pilot group of growers across the UK, covering a range of different production models and varieties typically found in our potato supply base.

Meet the new recruit…

To support the success of this project we have an MDS placement starting with us in October in the role of Sustainability Coordinator Sam Kendrick. This will be Sam’s fourth placement with the MDS scheme and he has been involved with data projects in previous roles with Syngenta and Iceland, so will be well placed as the conduit between Trinity, Greenvale and our growers. Watch this space for further updates as the project progresses!

IT Matters…

Systems and Technology Update

from the IT Team

The summer months (and the Xmas period) often present a challenge due to holiday absence, not only within the IT team but also within our technology supplier base and across the Produce Investments business units. The key focus is to maintain stability and continue to provide an un interrupted and un diminished service to all our users and business areas. Nevertheless, on top of the regular stream of support activities we have made a number of key improvements to infrastructure and security as well as making positive progress on strategic projects.

Infrastructure and Systems Strategy

The Infrastructure team has made good progress in configuring and testing an alternative to Citrix called AVD (Azure Virtual Desktop). This is based on the latest offerings from Microsoft and delivers a modern, flexible, cost effective and hopefully future proof alternative to our current Citrix environment. We now have a working prototype that is capable of running Navision and all other group applications. The IT team will continue comprehensive testing for the rest of 2022. We also expect to start live testing by offering the desktop to a selected group of pilot users in 2022. On the applications front, we have completed the initial assessment of system upgrade options Navision upgrades or alternatives. This has proven more challenging, technically complex and has opened questions that will require more time and detail consideration.

Asset Management

Over the summer months, the team has been working to update the IT asset register to ensure we have the most up to date and accurate information. An up to date inventory allows us to effectively manage the life cycle of equipment and make strategic decisions including maintenance and replacement.

Infrastructure Changes and Improvements

All changes planned for 2022 are now mostly complete. The major changes that have gone Live over the last 4 months include:

• Transition to a new anti virus solution (MS Defender) providing effective virus protection and better integration with our Microsoft suite of products.

• Upgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 11 on laptops.

• New secure VPN options for remote login from laptops.

• Transition of shared services staff from the greenvale.co.uk domain to produceinvestments.co.uk with new emails and logins.

EPOS Data Visualization

Over the past few months, we have worked with the commercial team to create a database and reports which look at the sales data received from our customers. The data from the customer is uploaded to the database. It is then used in a Power BI report which shows the trends in sales in a variety of different ways by using filters on the data.. Cyber Security Training

In June, we launched our first Cyber Security Training course with the objective to embed basic knowledge and promote safe behaviour. We strive to enforce the highest levels of security with technology but ultimately, it depends on individuals people knowing how to detect, prevent and respond to cyber risks.

In the last 12 months, 39% of UK businesses identified a cyber attack

To date, less than 50% of staff using company IT systems have completed the course. We are looking to have all staff completed this by the end of the calendar year.

As the summer is ending it signals the end of another long and somewhat challenging Jersey Royal export season. The 2022 season was always going to be a slightly longer one due to some of our retail customers specifically asking for export volumes through August, so the teams were prepared for a longer than normal one. Back at the start of the season the weather was very kind for planting where conditions could not have been better, the farming teams were buoyant and hoping for some good growing weather, especially after two difficult growing seasons. Mother nature however, had different ideas and following a relatively mild spring delaying initial crop development, we found ourselves with one of the driest Jersey Royal seasons on record combined with some of the hottest temperatures on record!

July 2022 was the driest July month since records began back in 1894, it was also the second sunniest ever, and finally topped with the warmest day / night temperatures ever peaking at 38 degrees and not dropping below 25.5 degrees throughout

Rapid

A quick look at what’s been happe

the night. Nice weather for swimming in the sea, but not for growing a crop of Jersey Royals. The net result was heavily reduced yields, quality issues, and a much busier grading process to manage QC expectations.

The farm has remained busy all through August and has just finished the seed harvest, whilst managing the newly acquired daffodil business from Woodside Farms. Daffodil bulb harvesting has kept the teams extremely busy and grading of these has now finished and been completed too. Packing and exporting remains the focus through September and that will then come to a close for the 2022 season. The rest of the farming teams are now on a break until October time when they return for the annual seed standing process.

ning across the group since May

The engineering teams have also had a very busy season with repairs and servicing our huge vehicle fleet including 85 tractors, and 90 farm vehicles! They are now awaiting delivery of 9 brand new John Deere 6120M’s in September, which are replacing 9 tractors we had on lease that ending in August and will freshen up the fleet going forward.

Earlier in the year we mentioned the official ‘LEAF demonstration farm’ launch and celebration which we held on island on the 12th of May. This was very well planned, and the highlight was the farm tour for the visiting guests who were transported in some of Jersey’s finest restored old farm vehicles. These were originally used to cart tonnes of Jersey Royals to the old weighbridge before setting sail to the UK in years gone by, now they are used on special occasions such as the LEAF demo launch and we were lucky enough to borrow them for the afternoon.

Keeping on the topic of LEAF we also hosted our annual ‘Open Farm Sunday’ event on Sunday 12th June, which was a very well attended local event where the public could visit our packing operations, and our annual school visits also took place through the season.

In the commercial department we are just starting to review all customers individual performance for 2022 with end of season reviews scheduled through September and October. The retail market was very subdued, with retail inflation affecting penetration across nearly all the retailers. The focus through the autumn will be making sure we have suitable plans for 2023, as we do not expect the retail market to change drastically for 2023 with continued cost inflation affecting the whole of the UK and Jersey. The marketing campaign for 2022 has finished and plans are already underway for next year’s campaign. The focus this year was the Jamie Oliver partnership which we discussed previously, and the results from this were very impressive widening our target reach along the way. Social media continues to be the main focus of attention with platforms such as TikTok outperforming other in terms of growth rates, which gives us some great opportunities to continue growth and awareness of the Jersey Royal brand in 2023.

The Rowe Farm bulb season commenced on June 1st, 2022.

Here

The total planned area to harvest has been completed successfully.

All bulbs have been processed and are ready for planting.

All planned area have been planted, and all estimated volumes of picked daffodils have now been sold.

Sales for the 2023 cut flower season currently underway.

Two new colleagues have joined the Produce Solutions team – here’s a quick introduction…

Tom is from a family farm in Cornwall (near Truro) where their main enterprise is sheep. He recently graduated from Harper Adams with a First Class Hons degree in Agriculture and Crop Management. Whilst at Harper Adams, Tom spent his placement year working for UPL as a triallist gaining many of the skills he will bring to supporting the team in our own trials offer. He also spent the summer of 2021 working for Dyson Farming Ltd. Tom’s practical experience will be a great asset to the business. He is based at the Chadwell Court office and will be assisting the Produce Solutions team in the west. Outside of work, his hobbies are cricket, rugby, and shooting.

Poppy joined the team in July growing up on an arable farm she has just gained a First Class Hons degree in Agriculture from the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester. During her time at RAU, she did a placement as a field trials assistant with Bayer where she gained a recognition award for outstanding commitment. Poppy enjoys being active walking her dog, horse riding and playing tennis. She has also set up her own business during Covid, providing gel nails (not sure she’s seen the state of some of ours!).

By Dirk Garos, Commercial Director

Restrain is now approved in the US and Canada as a sprout inhibitor for potatoes and onions, as well as a ripening agent for tomatoes in greenhouses. Restrain has now been approved by 16 states, following umbrella national approval from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In Canada the use of Restrain is permitted throughout the entire country.

After harvest, potatoes and onions remain in storage sheds for months before being distributed to sales and processing locations. During that time, the potatoes and onions can develop sprouts that affect the quality unsuitable for sale and processing. Restrain prevents that.

Restrain is a natural sprout inhibitor based on the natural gas ethylene and is recognized as the most economical alternative to still currently used CIPC on potatoes. By using very low concentration of natural ethylene gas continuous in their storage locations, growers prevent the potatoes and onions from sprouting. The method is already used in 40 countries worldwide as a sprout inhibitor for potatoes and onions, and as a seed potato accumulator. In greenhouse tomatoes at the end of the growing season, ethylene is also used as a natural ripening on the vine.

Since 2022, the use of Restrain has been permitted in the US states of Washington, Oregon, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Utah, Colorado, Iowa, Idaho, Nebraska, New York, and Pennsylvania. The admission process is still ongoing in California. Restrain applied for use in organic farming in North America. Restrain has already obtained this approval in Europe, because ethylene is a natural gas and does not leave any residues or unpleasant smell, unlike CIPC and the alternatives.

New colleague for US and Canada

Emily Merk joined Restrain on 15th August 2022. Emily worked for 7 years as a Senior Ag Specialist for Lamb Weston managing potato harvest logistics, quality, and storage for 3 of their processing plants and 6,000 acres of potatoes. Emily has a technical foundation with a degree in Crop and Soil Science and an earlier role as Agronomist with Dupont Pioneer. She has a lot of experience talking to and influencing potato growers, giving technical advice on quality and storages issues and managing postharvest application.

Hello from Emily!

Hello everyone, I am very excited to be officially part of Restrain! I wanted to join Restrain because I see the value in what the company has to offer and wanted to take part in the exciting adventure of taking the U.S. Market! I am based out Washington State in the West of the U.S. I am situated in an area that has a very high volume of process & table potatoes, as well as onions, apples, cherries, grapes, vegetable seed, corn and forage. My husband and I share two daughters, Charley (2.5) & Camille (6mo) together on our tiny farm with cows, chickens, cats and 3 dogs. I am excited to meet all the new faces and learn more about this business.

By Amy Stamp, Senior Customer Insight Manager

• The potato market sees an improving position although still remains in YoY decline:

• The total potato market sees 5.7% value decline and volumes are down by 9.2%.

• Value continues to outperform volume due to average price increasing by 3.8% YoY to £0.75 per kg.

• Customers shopping less often is the main driver of decline, although this has eased as we start to annualise against post Covid and ‘Freedom Day’ (19/7/21).

Tesco and Asda also outperform the market.Both Lidl and Aldi see value growth this month, as well as Ocado all see significantly increased customer numbers.

Sainsbury’s are the only one of the standard Big 4 to see gains through increased customer numbers.

Aldi’s market share is now larger than Morrisons –this means that the ‘Big 4’ in the potato market are now Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Aldi.

We find ourselves in unfamiliar territory, with the cost of living rising at unprecedented rates and inflation hitting all sectors. Shoppers are more conscious than ever about the cost of food and are cutting back in all areas which means convenience retailers like the Co op are starting to feel the impact especially in areas like fresh produce. Potato sales are behind year on year as customers move back to larger retailers for their weekly shop - this is further compounded by the level of inflation we are seeing in our supply base (which we must pass on to the Co op and consequently impacts on retail prices). We are looking at a full range review to understand what changes we need to make, firstly to drive more sales, and secondly to try and mitigate some of the inflation we are seeing.

Lidl volumes continue to perform as forecasted, and as a retailer they are potentially in a better place than others during times of inflation. They continue to see their market share rise as more price sensitive customers continue to shop there. We are still in discussions over inflation but are moving towards a mutual agreement and sales continue to out perform other retailers within the potato category.

We launched with Iceland back in July (later than we had intended due to packaging delays). Due to inflationary pressures, Iceland took the decision to re tender their business starting from October 2022 and running for 2 years. Unfortunately, on this occasion we were unsuccessful in our bid and ceased supply on the 7th October.

We saw a long period of promotional activity on the TtD British Gems line which saw us supply just under 2 million packs into Sainsbury’s throughout the end of July and into August. 2022 marks the end of British Gems following the move to lower volumes with Sainsbury’s this product will no longer be available. Thank you to all who have worked hard to deliver this promotion.

We have now successfully transitioned to the lower volumes, and as of 21st August we are on the new Sainsbury’s volumes. As part of the new contract, we have retained 100% of the Organics lines which in support of Organic September are now on a six week promotion in store. To kick off the start of the UK Organic crop, we visited our main organic grower Nick Taylor in Shropshire with Sainsbury’s Technologist Kate Daly. The team was treated to a day of crop walking and a chance to look at the latest trials being run in conjunction with Produce Solutions.

Social Media

If you have any content for our Greenvale social media, please email Harriet.Jelbert@greenvale.co.uk with photos and a brief description.

Previously we have posted about events at sites, harvesting, crop updates, community events, school visits, food bank donations… the list goes on! Let’s get creative!

Don’t forget to follow us!

Harriet Jelbert, Greenvale Account and Marketing Executive

B2B Packing has now fully migrated to our Duns site with Floods focusing on retail and sending their outgrades to Masons to pack externally for Wholesale markets. The ongoing project to see Duns have its own

fully automated pack line with 2 robots building pallets has now been completed –notably supporting this move.

Successful tenders with Bakkavor and 2Sisters have seen us grow these lines for the coming year and we are currently working on a project for SKU rationalisation making the efficiency of packing salads into these customers much better and less time consuming for production. Engagement with new customers like Food Heroes and Saxon Foods has successfully captured this business going forward helping utilise the outsizes from current lines.

As new season main crop becomes available, we expect to see volumes increase again, with customers especially excited to get Jelly in our premium range once it’s harvested. Our new season Venezia has gone down a treat in the markets with our Brand box sales taking off again. We will be driving sales and concentrating on raw material selections to keep supply with McCains going and to generate the material we require for our other lines.

Charity

Over the summer months we have worked with FareShare and our customers to redistribute to over 200 charities, this has seen us provide the equivalent of 14,857 meals to those most in need. We continue to support local food banks with weekly and monthly donations of potatoes!

Golden Kings

Golden Kings are the perfect all Since

launch in Sainsbury’s in February

Latest News

In

it, Golden Kings are now

in over 400 Tesco stores nationwide. Since

launch on October 3rd Tesco have sold over 50,000

Golden Kings, with over 18,000

in the first 7 days. We are currently in talks

to extend the store ranging to over 600

the Christmas period which is great news

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Sainsbury’s

Berwickshire Country Show

Rebecca Elliot

Berwickshire County Show returned with a bang on 6th August this year, beautiful weather helped with a good turnout. Our team had a small stand showing off some of our products and equipment. We also had Bombay potatoes and potato salad made with our very own Venezia on hand to sample. The kids had a great time playing with the Mr Potato Head(s) and colouring in whilst the adults enjoyed complimentary beers and wine. It was a great day out thanks to all! We raised £49.92 for our charity fund which we will allocate to local groups needing extra support.

30 Years

Stevie Burton

Congratulations to Duns Engineering Manager Stevie Burton on reaching his 30 years’ loyal service. He must have started with Greenvale when he was 5 years old!

Berwick Rotary Annual Charity Golf Competition

The Berwick Rotary Annual Charity Golf Competition took place on Wednesday 10th August 2022 at Goswick Golf Club. Taking part were Alan Todd, Brian Anderson, Steven Kerr and Leslie Mitchell. Greenvale came second by 1 point. The event hoped to raise the £5000 required for a new computer white board for the Grove School for children with special educational needs. Well done all!

One of the main jobs in the summer period for seed staff is to attend variety demonstration days and trials. Greenvale Seed has several varieties included in trials across the country and there is a set schedule from early July through to September where we attend these trials and check out how our varieties are performing against the competition.

The main varieties we are promoting now are Karelia, Tyson and Carousel and I’m pleased to say it’s been a good summer for them.

PICTURED: Bill Watts, Iain Paterson, Poppy Clark and Tihomir Evtimov selecting the next GVAP varieties from the James Hutton Institute trials.

Tyson was the stand out variety in the Nene variety trials and we received a good number of enquiries which have turned into sales. Tesco now pack the variety and it has moved into the mainstream whites market. Karelia is in a number of trials to test resistance and tolerance to PCN (G Pallida) and it is looking very promising too.

We attended Potatoes in Practice on one the hottest days of the year but our new stand looked good and we met a lot of our Scottish seed and ware growers. It’s important that we maintain our presence as a major seed house by attending these events so well done to Lucinda, Adrian and the team for covering the miles!

Tony Polanskis new start

Tony started with the seed team in early July as seed management trainee and following his induction has spent a lot of time in the field getting to know the fine details on seed production, under the wing of Iain Paterson. Tony knows the ware side of the business well, having come from Morrisons with a spell at Branston, but he has wisely chosen to specialise in seed. We wish him all the best.

The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee 2022

In June 2022, Her Majesty The Queen became the first British Monarch to celebrate a Platinum Jubilee after 70 years of service. The team at Floods Ferry celebrated the occasion with baby Victoria sponge cakes. Delicious!!

As we hit record temperatures this July, the team at Floods Ferry enjoyed ice creams supplied by Jim Boys. A welcome relief during the heatwave!

Magpas Charity Donations

Floods Ferry donated £119.27 to Magpas Air Ambulance to help contribute towards the essential lifesaving care they provide by land and air to patients in life threatening emergencies in the East of England and beyond. Floods Ferry have donated a whopping £7,024.99 over the last 2 years!

Adrian Dickson Engineering Manager

Katie Cave Quality Controller

Joao Pontes Wash Area Team Leader

Howarth Site Crop Advisor and Andy Willmott Despatch Team Leader also celebrated

years service but must have been hiding when we got the camera out!

done and thank you for all your hard work and dedication to the business!