Emily Mee is Business Development Manager for Mee Farmers, a diversified family farming business growing blueberries and arable crops. Growing 320,000 blueberry plants on 75 hectares in Northamptonshire, Emily together with her parents, brother and sister-in-law, produce and sell tonnes of fresh fruit to major retailers and a wide range of blueberry products to retailers and in their pop-up shop including juice, gin liqueur, honey and chutney.
“We use AF for machinery hire. For example, generators for the river pump (we have an irrigation licence) and for drying and blowing down the combine, 360 excavators etc. AF’s machinery hire is handy for little niche jobs that we don't need equipment for year-round. Trying to find somewhere that can hire at short notice, or if someone asks us to do a job, can be tricky but we can get one through AF.
“It's useful to be able to help our local community and build trust, whilst not having to buy equipment and have it sat around on the farm when it’s not being used. The Machinery team do the hunting around for us, which saves us a lot of time.
“AF comes in cheaper than when we search for quotes too, so it’s great to get the benefit of savings.”
“We don't need a lot of inputs for the blueberries. We use copper every year as a plaster after pruning, and we will occasionally spray to control a problem like aphids or caterpillars. We try to keep the fruit as close to organic as possible, so most of the small amount of crop protection products we order are for the arable side of our business.”
“Another key area are AF Charge Cards. We use them for everything that we can, spending around £16,000 on them last year. The ease of having all those charges on one invoice makes it a lot easier for the business.
“The fuel garages we use locally are all covered by AF fuel cards, so they are really useful. We don't have to spend time trying to find the cheapest pricing. We just know we have somewhere on our doorstep where we can go for fuel for mowers, strimmers, the small machinery and the business trucks. It’s very useful for our long-distance deliveries too. We make savings of 14 pence per litre an average compared to the pump price.
“Actually having everything, even our waste disposal, invoiced collectively in one statement, and to know our account number when we’re dealing with suppliers makes doing business much easier. And if we have a query or a problem, we just speak to AF to sort it out. The team are always so helpful.”
“The main benefit of AF for our business is really time saving – it’s that one stop shop for everything we need. On average I’d say AF saves us around 1 week (30-35 hours) per month in time spent getting quotes etc. We’ve been Members since 2003, and we're not leaving anytime soon!”
“We’ve got some new projects coming up including some building work, more energy generation – we’ve been looking with the village at putting a wind turbine in to support the whole village and possibly a thermal heat project for the village too.
“I think machinery hire will become a bigger and bigger thing. It gives us the freedom to get what we need when we need it, without the expense of having it sat in the shed, especially as contracting chops and changes.
“We have around 20% of our land in environmental schemes. We are LEAF certified, we do all the M&S extra modules for landscape management and integrated pest management. We're considering the higher tier Countryside Stewardship options at the moment as our mid-tier programme ends this year. We try to make sure that what’s good for our bank balance is good for the environment.”
“Recently, we’ve learned about using myAF to view invoices and AF Online to buy simple products online, so we’ve booked time with our Account Manager to get set up. We love that AF finds ways to make things even easier.”
Browse the Mee Blueberries website to find out more about them and how to buy their products.
Want to see how AF can help save your business time and money? Read more here.
