Member's Areas of Interest: Farmers & Growers

Under their Leaf of Faith brand, Applegarth Farm is looking at ways to directly integrate both hydroponic and aeroponic growing into food service and food retail. It is trialling various methods of production with the intent of building a large grow room as the heart of a new consumer focused food site on the Surrey – Hampshire border. Food hall, restaurant, growing and cook school, eco pods as accommodation make up part of the site.

The farm has been owned by the Benson family for 38 years and has slowly grown into what is now a vibrant, popular business employing over 30 people, For 5 years they have seen the potential to expand Applegarth to include a range of new services which will greatly benefit many people. The scheme will provide a range of employment opportunities as well as a nurturing environment for small business.  Applegarth has a very special ambience and  they are looking to enhance this with a range of additional offerings, such as the on-site controlled environment production. They are extremely well placed to deliver on every part of this business plan with considerable experience in various sectors that this plan encompasses.

Bedfordia Farms is a family owned business dating from 1939 seeking to manage farmland and to farm within long established and firmly held core values of responsibility and integrity.  With a dedicated and valued team of some 28 full time staff, we are managing land and farming activities for the Ibbett family and private and institutional land owners in Bedfordshire and Leicestershire. Farming combinable crops over some circa 10,000 acres of predominately heavy land and finishing circa 35,000 pigs from 1,100 sows together with a 27,000t grain store complex run for own and third party grains form the core farming business activities.

The slurry from the pig finishing unit provides feedstock to one of the first wave of commercial scale food waste AD plants in the UK (The Twinwoods plant built 2005) which is co-located on the farm. Bedfordia created Biogen in the mid 2000’s and later partnered with Kier to build one of the leading design, build and operating business of food waste AD plants in the UK. The Biogen business has now been successfully sold and operates independently of Bedfordia; though two plants (and their offices at Milton Ernest) are based on the farms and Bedfordia utilise the digestate as a fertiliser displacer on combinable crops. This, together with other renewables (wind and solar) provide a diversified income stream to the core farm business.

Bedfordia Farms seek to continue to develop as a leading land manager and farming business, harnessing technology and innovation, best practice and shared learning in the search to strive for sustainable intensification of all our farm activities with a high priority for both our staff, our land, the environment and our production and animal welfare from the livestock activities we are engaged with.

COGZ is the UK’s leading online marketplace for trading surplus and process grade produce directly to the food industry.

Using the COGZ online marketplace farmers and growers can quickly and easily list and sell their surplus and below grade produce directly to food and beverage manufacturers.

Food and beverage manufacturers use the COGZ online marketplace to discover and source new produce for their brands and products directly from farmers and growers.

Therefore, for famers and growers we offer and quick and easy way for you to reach new buyers and increase revenue from your surplus and lower grade produce, and for manufactures and suppliers we provide a quick and easy way for you to source the produce you need quickly and at a fair price, whilst creating more sustainable products for your end consumers.

Sign up to the COGZ marketplace and help us transform the way surplus and lower grade produce is traded in the supply chain.

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Independent Grain Marketing

CRM Agri provide buyers and sellers of grains across the UK, Europe and the Black Sea with independent advice in order to minimise the negative impacts of volatility, whilst delivering consistently strong financial performance in an increasingly volatile market.

How it works

Farmers and end users can subscribe to a number of packages providing everything from the highly valued independent market opinion report to fully tailored physical and risk management programmes, all clients can attend regular market update meetings, have direct access to a dedicated consultant and be more confident that they will buy or sell their physical commodities more effectively whilst spending less time following the markets – they get CRM Agri to tell them when its time to buy and sell!

Independence

CRM Agri hold a unique position within the market place, we do not trade, which avoids conflicting interests, allowing our clients to be confident in following our market leading advice.

Performance

We have a strong track record in beating market averages through the use of advanced data driven analytics and predetermined strategic plans to help minimise surprises and avoid ‘hunch’ based marketing.

Understanding our clients

Before we begin advising our clients, we take time to understand them and their business objectives, gathering information such as their risk attitude, storage/ cash flow requirements and their previous marketing experience and market knowledge.

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TESTIMONIALS

“Historically we had 2000T in pools, however, after two years with CRM Agri we now market all our grain independently and our results at the very least match and usually beat the pools”

Pete Collins, MJ & SC Collins, Essex

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“I use the team at CRM to challenge my thoughts on pricing and where the market might go help my clients achieve a better price, it also provides the owners of the farms we manage with the confidence that their grain is being marketed independently and professionally”

Alex Bragg, Savills Food & Farming, Head of Eastern region

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“It’s not just about yield but getting the best price for what we produce, particularly in tough times. The independent advice from CRM Agri gives us the insight we need to understand the markets and increase our profitability”

Ali Wade, Kinrah Farms, Wiltshire

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“Farmers don’t have time to analyse what’s happening all over the world, which makes the strategy CRM Agri gives us invaluable. We concentrate on growing the crop and rely on CRM to provide us with the strategy to get the best price we possibly can”

Christopher Heneage, Heneage Estates, Lincolnshire

Frederick Hiam – a farming and fresh produce business based near Brandon, Suffolk. Major crops grown are potatoes, parsnips, onions, sugar beet and cereals. In-house storage, grading, washing, packing and marketing facilities for pack sizes ranging from full bulk loads to 500g packs. Environmental interests span woodland, heathland, wetland and arable land managed under ELS and HLS agreements and includes protected sites and species. Interested in nurturing and developing new and innovative technologies for food and farming. The business is family owned and has a full time staff of around 70.

Allpress Farms are a family owned business, incorporated in 1965, based in Chatteris, Cambridgeshire.​ They farm over 2,000 acres of land, producing leeks, onions, wheat, sugar beet and maize.​ Their leeks are processed in their packing facility, and appear on supermarket shelves the length and breadth of the UK.​ Waste leeks and onions go through an Anaerobic Digester to generate electricity for roughly 900 houses. Allpress currently employ around 100 full time staff, and pride themselves on being a profitable and stable business.

Euston is a 11,500 acre Breckland country estate, of which 6,500 acres is farmed in hand.  We grow wheat, barley, maize, rye and sugar beet, the land is also utilised for free-range pig and poultry farming and irrigated crop production in association with other producers.  We are particularly proud of the ‘Suffolk Trinity’; our own Grafton herd of Red Poll cattle, along with Suffolk Punch and Suffolk sheep, which can all be seen on Estate grassland.

Farm management has been described as ‘traditional meets modern’ where commercial farming dovetails with significant conservation measures, indeed our farming includes five separate Higher Level Stewardship Schemes.  In March 2016, Euston Farms was awarded the accolade of ‘Greenest Farming Business’ in the Creating the Greenest County Awards.  Recent renewable energy projects on the farm comprise 13MW of Photo Voltaic panels  and a 2.5MW Anaerobic digestion plant.

Follow them on Facebook to see their latest updates.

J F Temple & Son Ltd farm approximately 230 hectares of land in and around Wighton. The main enterprise is dairy, with approximately 130 cows, and a similar number of young stock. The dairy herd is almost pure pedigree Brown Swiss.

About a third of the milk is used for cheesemaking, the rest sold wholesale to Arla. Arable crops are barley (for seed and feeding cows), maize and beet for cows and digester, and beans and lucerne for cow feed.

J F Temple & Son are currently using methane from their biogas plant for generating up to 170 kW of electricity for the grid and their own use, and heating for grain drying, cheesemaking, dairy hot water, farm house and office and three nearby farm cottages. The biogas is produced from cattle manure, whey from cheese, fodder beet and maize silage.

J F Temple & Son have replaced a van and an 18,000 miles/year diesel car with two fully electric cars, have a John Deere electric Gator buggy and an electric ride-on mower. They are using strip tillage for maize to reduce energy use and improve soil conservation. They export to the grid as electricity more than twice the amount of energy they buy as diesel fuel.

The digestate from the biogas applied with a trailing shoe tanker is a most valuable fertiliser. They have recently equipped four staff houses with PV panels and two with biomass boilers.

Salle Farms Co is a Norfolk estate, owned by Sir John White and his family for the last 100 years. They farm in excess of 2,000 hectares, including the neighbouring Heydon Estate as well as three other local farms. At Salle they crop winter and spring cereals, sugar beet, spring beans and oilseed rape on a seven year rotation.

The Estate has been actively involved in crop research and development for many years. They are currently hosting the Wensum DTC project for catchment sensitive farming, exploring mitigating measures and their effect on water quality and economic performance. The Estate works with other partners including Morley Research Centre, UEA, NIAB TAG, BBRO and the Broadland Catchment Partnership, adopting precision farming technology to improve farming practices and achieve above average yields.

Diversification projects include growing and retailing Christmas trees and cold pressing oilseed rape for the production of high quality cooking oils, salad dressings and granola.

Since 2005 a further 900 hectares of arable land has been farmed in Northern Poland and this successfully produces a range of combinable crops and potatoes.