Based in south-east Cornwall, Agricola Growers and HF Produce is a true family enterprise, combining large-scale farming with fresh produce preparation for some of the UK’s best-known food brands. Director Elizabeth Oatey shares how the business has evolved, and why AF is a valued part of how they do business.
“I’ve always wanted to be involved in the family business, but I didn’t expect it to happen quite so quickly. After studying agri-food with business at Harper Adams, and spending my placement year with AF, an opportunity came up back home just as a few changes were happening within Agricola - so I jumped straight in!
“That was back in 2018, and I’ve been here ever since, now as Sales and Production Manager and a Director of Agricola Growers and HF Produce.”
Elizabeth works alongside her father Jeremy to drive their growing family businesses.
“Our business has grown hugely over the years. We’ve got around 4,000 acres across several contract farming agreements and a busy produce site where we wash, peel and prepare mainly root veg - potatoes, onions, swede - along with leeks and butternut squash.
“Much of it goes into Cornish pasties, but we also supply independent bakeries, foodservice wholesalers, schools and restaurants. It’s become a proper one-stop shop for prepped veg, and it keeps us on our toes!”
“Over the past few years, we’ve invested heavily to increase capacity and improve efficiency: upgrading our peeling lines, adding solar panels and new water systems including grey water recycling, and expanding the product range. With changes in labour availability, being organised and working efficiently has never been more important.”
“We’ve been AF Members for more than twenty years, and for us it’s about making life simpler. It started with buying ag chem - we just send through lists of what we need, and AF find the best value products.
“We know AF isn’t always going to be the cheapest every time, but it'll be the best value over time.”
“We now buy electricity through AF. It’s so complex that as our contracts come up for renewal, we’ve been putting them through AF and it saves us a lot of time and hassle.
“A lot of our machinery and plant is quite specialist, but there are odd bits that we buy through AF, as well as spare parts and vehicles such as pickups.
"We even buy things for the livestock side of our business, although we try to make it as low input as possible."
“Having one monthly pack of invoices for each farm makes managing costs so much easier and it’s simple to keep track of spend for each farm. Our finance manager uses the Member portal, MyAF, to view orders and invoices so there are no surprises each month.
“It’s great having our account manager visit in person. Every time they come, we discover something new we can source through AF, from equipment to packaging and more. During this year's visit, we learnt a lot more about AF Online, where we can place orders for things such as IT equipment and fuels.
“Being an AF Member saves us so much time and lets us focus on what we do best: growing and producing good Cornish food.”
To find out more about Agricola visit: https://www.agricolagrowers.co.uk/
For details about H F Produce visit: https://www.hfproduce.co.uk/
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