UNDUP

Colin Fish

Colin is a dairy farmer in South Shropshire and has worked for the trials unit as a seasonal parttime Trials Assistant for the past couple of years in and around his milking duties!. With the increase in workload being taken on, Colin’s hours have now been extended so he is working part-time throughout the year. He has a unique talent for finding unusual-shaped potatoes – as this photo of a “Tweet” from last year will testify.

Georgina Lock

Produce Solutions has taken on an MDS Placement student, Georgina Lock, to assist the trials and agronomy team in the east, and take responsibility for a small number of projects. Georgina joins the team having recently completed a Degree in International Business Management at the Royal Agricultural College; having a farming background in her home country of Zimbabwe. Her particular interest is in sustainable supply chains and one of her first days involved a tour of the Floods Ferry site. Looking at the photo - let’s hope she’s still as enthusiastic about potatoes in six months time!

January all the flower pickers arrive. circa 650 people.

Jan to April daffodils being harvested. Rowe harvested just over 25 million bunches of their own crop.

Rowe supported a local Church daffodil festival. We also sponsored the wood land trust behind the farm which offers the local schools and community a chance for guided woodland tours and the chance to enjoy the surrounding woodland and wildlife

By Amy Stamp, Senior Customer Insight Manager Kantar data to 19 March 2023

52 Weeks

• The market sees a return to value growth at £900m, +2.5% YoY. However, this remains down by £100m on the pre-pandemic position.

• The volume position also improves, with volume down -4.9% at 1.308m tonnes.

• Average price rises continue, +7.8% to £0.69/kg.

• Customers are shopping potatoes an average of 25.4 times a year.

12 Weeks

• The total potato market sees a +14.2% value position. This remains driven solely by average price, up 16.7% to £0.70/kg.

• However, volume continues to decline, by -2.2% YoY, although this is an improving position from the previous months.

• Compared to the total produce market, potatoes see higher inflation, but a stronger volume position. Total produce spend per trip is also further down than we see in potatoes – we know that higher value products such as berries are suffering more.

• Customers are shopping slightly less often and buying slightly less per trip in an effort to control spending levels.

• At a retailer level, Aldi and Lidl drive the most value growth through above average inflation (average price +25%). They now have almost 25% of the potato market by volume (23.4%).

• Co-Op show a static -1% position, but they have not seen anywhere near the same level of inflation as the market (average price just +1.5% compared to total market +16.7%)

• M&S drive the strongest volume position – their Fresh Market Specials and investment in price (average £/kg8.9%) have driven double digit penetration growth (+14.8%) and customers buying more per trip (+12.2%).

• Asda show the strongest value performance of the Big 4, and are the only one of the Big 4 to see volume growth.

It has been a tough few months for potatoes in the Co-op, with volumes tracking behind year on year as shoppers continue to search out lower prices for their food. Christmas was okay, with volumes level with last year, however, the Co-op is never a destination shop at Christmas for potatoes, so we do not see those big uplifts as in other retailers. Our Irresistible lines have been performing well and are tracking ahead of last year, with the new 4 pack baking potato being a star performer. In recent weeks however, we have started to see the category performance come back with levels similar to last year, partly because of some price investment from Co-op, dropping the retails on a number of lines but also because of some promotional activity on Irresistible whites and baby. We continue to see high inflation in the cost of raw material for the 2023/24 season and with this in mind we will be looking at a full range review to make sure we have the best possible mix of products. We will also be working with the Co-op value chain team to understand if there are any changes we can make to our process which could reduce costs. To that end, we have a full day visit from the Co-op team to go through several proposals and give the people who have not been to site before a full tour of Floods Ferry, so they can understand our production flow and hopefully make some recommendations.

Lidl continues to perform as forecasted with another good Christmas - the Christmas Mini Roast line delivering great volumes. Lidl continue to perform as a supermarket as more shoppers use the discounters, and as the price of food increases this has also been reflected in the potato category with good volume coming through on a weekly basis. The good news is we were successful in retaining our volume with Lidl and now have a contract until September 2024 with good volume increases forecasted. Both Aldi and Lidl have seen increasing market share on the back of the cost-of-living crisis - this is predicted to increase going forward so it’s great we have Lidl within our customer mix.

It has been a busy few months with Sainsburys, after an excellent performance over the Christmas period, Sainsburys focus remains on offering deep cut promotions and maintaining their Sainsburys quality Aldi price match to customers. This is driving good volume performance against forecast for SKUs such as Bakers 2.5kg, King Edwards 2kg and Golden Kings.

Challenges remain around Organic volumes and sales as the cost-of-living crisis continues to effect shoppers wallets, environmental concerns are lessening as people feel the effects of inflation more and more. In order to drive more volume sales for both us and Sainsburys, we have undertaken pricing support to enable Sainsburys to lower their prices to Organic shoppers. We continue to look at other opportunities within the Organic category to maximise sales in this area and recently attended the Organic Trade Board AGM to gain an insight into the minds and motives of the Organic shopper.

We are also excited to announce the launch of Baby Golden Kings into Sainsburys at the beginning of March. Following months of hard work by the brand team, we were delighted that Sainsburys jumped at the opportunity to list the latest product within the Golden Kings brand. Starting with distribution into 270 Sainsbury’s stores nationwide, it is still early days for the GK Babies but early sales and customer feedback have been encouraging.

“IboughtabagofyourgoldenKingsbabypotatoestodayandcookedthem fordinner. I'djustliketotellyou-they'reabsolutelydelicious!Quitethe bestpotatoI'veeverhad(outsideofJerseyRoyalseason-andyoursarea contenderforatleastasgoodasthem).Thanksforallyourhardworkin growingthem,andplease,pleasemakeSainsburyskeepsellingthem!”

We will continue to update you via the Hub of Golden Kings performance over the coming months.

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

By Doug Bell (Head of Food Service)

Things are picking up in the B2B world as the hospitality economy fully recovers and the spring tourism boost is in full swing.

Greenvale’s B2B business is now mainly focused out of the Duns site and supplies wholesale, Foodservice and food manufacturers. With steady volumes of old and new business combined with a core volume of retail, Duns site is now working an efficient crop utilisation model ensuring full use of all crop grades and sizes. We also have a relatively small volume of B2B generated at Floods Ferry. All of the sales are managed by Daniel Nowak at Duns with the assistance of Rebecca Elliott. Daniel also looks after the sales of Jersey Royals to the wholesale sector. As we start to plan for 2023/24 we will be looking to build on our volumes with key customers to further enhance performance.

Doug Bell and Rebecca Elliot from the B2B team attended the Larder of the Lowlands event at Easterbrook Hall in Dumfries on the 17th of April. The event was a great opportunity to showcase our brand alongside the best of the borders produce. There were over 50 suppliers and 120 buyers in attendance and the event was supported by Scotland Food & Drink. Greenvale potatoes were used in the cooking demonstration and canapés which went down great - with the chef even personally thanking us for providing. Overall, it was a great day for networking and we are hopeful on some leads we generated for new business. This was the Larder of the Lowlands first year and we plan to continue to support in the future.