Life on the pea harvest

Well I’ve made it back. Almost seven miles. Absolutely superb countryside. Thoroughly enjoyed that walk, brought back a lot of reminiscing and cleared the mind and it’s just a good thing to do.

Anyway, that’s going to be me signing off now for a week because we’re actually off to Portugal. So I’m going to forget work. But when I come back there’ll be loads of things of interest on the blog. About the soya harvest in Italy. About our foreign office, we’re meeting them tuesday after I get back. We’re going to review that and we’re going to give that some direction.

We’ve got next year’s contracts to sort out. And we’ve got a buying department to set up. Anyway I’ll keep you up to date with what’s going on.

That’s all from me. I’ll talk to you in a week’s time.

Posted by Colin Wright at 9:42 AM | Permalink

Unfortunately I’ve got to the castle and the grounds are shut and I can’t go in which is a bit of a disappointment. But, here we are, that’s the keep. Described as the guardian of the day which is a very apt description I think.

Anyway catch you later.

Posted by Colin Wright at 9:10 AM | Permalink

I made it down to the falls now as you can see from the photographs. We’re about half way around and because we’re low down we’ve got to go all the way back up to Richmond Hill which is a bit taxing to say the least.

It’s always nice to come down here and just appreciate the force of nature. I guess in the job that we do, you know the whole thing with live and die and you know with nature, seasons and all the rest of it. There’s only so much you can do.

I suppose we always have to take that into account. But more often than not in terms of what we’re doing in agriculture, you’re always reacting to what nature is doing. I suppose that’s the fascination because we never know what happens next.

Posted by Colin Wright at 9:05 AM | Permalink

Back in Richmond now down by the river. I’ve taken a photo of the castle from the bridge and then I’ve taken a photo of the bridge and I’m continuing the walk.

Posted by Colin Wright at 8:58 AM | Permalink

This is a photo of the swell taken from the old railway bridge. The old railway long defunct thanks to Dr Beeching way back in the sixties or it could’ve been the seventies. Can’t even remember. (1963 -dug)

Posted by Colin Wright at 8:41 AM | Permalink

Well we’ve come down the valley a little bit and the photo you see now is actually Easby abbey.
This is actually where Anna and I were married many years ago. The church to the left, not the ruins I hasten to add.

I quite often like to have a walk down here and it’s quite interesting because you sort of think back to everything that’s happened since then and also thinking about the future. Plus the sale of BirdsEye which was announced at the weekend and I made some comment on yesterday.

I’ve had a lot of people ringing me up, you know suppliers and growers, wanting to understand what it means for the business.

Clearly I’m entirely optimistic about that. And I think in terms of the strategy it’s about growing the business both top and bottom line. It’ll be a little while before we actually get into the detail of the how we achieve that strategy and what the tactics will be.

And everybody that I’ve spoken to from the farming community they’ve been entirely supportive and they’ll continue to do their very best to enable us to have a very successful business. So I’m looking forward to getting stuck into that.

Anway, I’m going a little bit further.

Posted by Colin Wright at 8:27 AM | Permalink

It’s Colin. Thought you might be interested that I’m up at Richmond today on holiday where my mother-in-law lives. Anna and I came up yesterday so I’m on a perambulation this morning and I’ll just give you a little glimpse as to Richmond shire. That first Fell Tor you see is from the top of Richmond looking over at the Swale Valley. We’re going to make our way down to the river and then up to the falls and I’ll take a couple of shots.

I didn’t capture anything. I mentioned that we were racing at Alton Park last weekend. Unfortunately I forgot to take the blog camera with me so I’ve no photographic evidence.

But had quite a good outing really. Managed to finish second in my class. Particularly difficult practice cause it was so wet and then quite a well fought race. So I’m quite pleased with that

Anyway. Catch you later.

Posted by Colin Wright at 8:18 AM | Permalink

Hi it’s Colin, been having a few days off:-)

Quite a lot happening though as no doubt you’ll be aware the anouncement was made on Monday that Unilever has sold its frozen food businesses (which includes Birds Eye) into private equity (a company called Permira).

I think for me and our business there are a lot of opportunities as a result of this. Obviously I’m very disapointed having had 33 years with Birds Eye under the previous ownership—I’ve had some very good times and I’ve had a damn good career out of it…

Anyway I think the whole thing is now set up and there a lot opportunities.

But on a personal perspective I hope we are able to continue the bits that Unilever was committed to. Things like corporate social responsability and the sustainability initiatives so hopefully we can continue that momentum because the whole of the business will not survive into the the future unless it’s sustainable.

So we look forward to working under new ownership—it think it is inevitable there will be a lot of differences, but hopefully all for the good of the business, and personally I’m looking forward to it.

Still a lot of details to work out, we also need to make sure our commited suppliers are kept informed, which we will do… I’ll catch you later.

Tags: primera, unilever

Posted by Colin Wright at 9:20 AM | Permalink

Just a quick post. Celebration tonight, here we are. We’re actually at the Yarmouth Races just having a bit of a celebration with regards to the end of the pea season and the factory performance.

I could take a couple of photos of the management team at the Lowestoft factory with their wives enjoying the evening races at Yarmouth. Can’t say I am because we’re down at the moment. But there’s one more race to go!

Posted by Colin Wright at 7:42 PM | Permalink

Hi it’s Colin, I’ve just put up a photo of what I do for a bit of rest and relaxation, although for the last eight weeks I’ve haven’t done anything much at all as we always keep away from our racing activities during the pea season…

I thought you’d find this interesting, it’s a 1970 Merlin-17 Honda Ford 1600 (from the FF1600 Formula Ford racing class) that I use occasionally in the HSCC (Historic Sports Car Club) historic racing class or sometimes in the Classic Formula Ford 1600 championship. The next race is at Oulton Park next week, so I’m looking forward to that. (I’m a bit rusty though—having not raced in a while—so we’ll see how that goes, and there’s quite a lot of work to do on the car to get it all prepared in time).

Had a bit of a strange day today. We’ve had some fairly severe thunderstorms in East Anglia with some very heavy downpours. We’re hoping—fingers crossed—that it’s not going to be too wet for us lifting potatoes on Monday and certainly hope that the rain will be benefiting the main season crops because things don’t look all that brilliant for raw materials on potatoes and we need to spend a bit of time and attention next week looking at that and making sure we’re covered into the future.

We’ve got a meeting on Thursday afternoon with our suppliers and we hope to find out our true position from that meeting then we’ll be able to see where we go from there…

OK, signing-off.

Tags: formulaford

Posted by Colin Wright at 5:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Hi it’s Colin, just after half-past-six on Friday.

Just out with Doris this morning contemplating the day ahead. I’ve just taken a photograph looking out across the Blyth Valley which shows that harvest in this part of the world is just about finished, in fact a lot of people have even got their wheat harvests completed which is quite remarkable for this time of year and it’s a refection of the weather that we’ve had.

As far as we’re concerned, as you know it’s almost a week now since we’ve finished peas and we’re still taking stock of the situation. This morning we’ve got a financial review meeting which sounds exciting but it probably won’t be. This is a complete review of all the cost assumptions that we’ve made and to see where we are.

So, I’m with the accountants this morning getting my annual dose of reverse logic:-)

I’ll let you know how that goes.

Posted by Colin Wright at 6:40 AM | Permalink

Our American friends in DC were also struggling with the heatwave earlier this month. Just came across this nice shot of a wind turbine and I thought you might be interested in this photograph of the wind turbine just outside my office in Suffolk. The turbine is standing more or less on the most Easterly point in England!

I don’t know whether it looks nice or not to be honest, but it’s a bit of a distraction on a sunny morning. You get a strobe effect in the office—when it’s windy, the tips of the propeller are going at 110 miles-per-hour and that’s what creates this effect that’s distracting. Anyway, we’re about used to it now and if not, we shut the blinds but it’s a pity to do that on a sunny morning…

We’ve a few things to report which I will do when I get a bit of time later on.

Posted by Colin Wright at 5:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Hi this is Colin.

Just reporting that we’ve finally finished with 140 tonnes yesterday. So that’s the season completed.

We had a bit of a scare because of how constantly hot and dry it has been right the way through. Yesterday it was extremely wet and of course at one stage we weren’t going to be able to complete. But that’s how it goes.

I’ve got a meeting also today with the whole of the catchment team looking at the impact of where we are with volumes, quality and everything else. So I might just let you know how that goes.

Posted by Colin Wright at 10:16 AM | Permalink

Hello, it’s James here. So, that’s it! Well, that’s nearly it. We’re in the last field now, the one up on the coast that you’ve seen in the photographs. Very cool these last few days and and very wet but we got there eventually.

Just about to finish 55 days of hard slog since we started. It’s not been the best of seasons but everybody has done their absolute best to make sure we got as much out of it as possible, so from that point of view its a success.

Not much more to be said really—bit of a lie in tomorrow and then we get cracking with the 2007 planning.

Enjoy those peas:-)

[Dug adds: It looks like Colin will be carrying on with his posts. He has a lot of difficult days ahead with the wider environmental and sustainability issues and he wants to tell that story.]

Posted by at 6:09 PM | Permalink

Got back from Italy late last night. I’m now in Hull where we’ve got a meeting with our Italian customers just to review the crop and make sure that everything is in place for delivery of their requirements.

The season in Hull is almost complete, we’ve got about 500 tonnes left to harvest as from today which will take us through to the weekend—just need to make sure we get the best from the final crops.

My attentions now are clearly going to be focused on other crops. Potatoes in particular are causing us some difficulty—the hot dry weather that we’ve experienced giving us some problems that we’re having to overcome, particularly in terms of with volume with some of our contracted crops. We’re OK at the moment but we’re going to need some detailed discussions with our suppliers to make sure we’re covered both in terms of volume and of course the right quantity that we require.

Also, we’re looking at the 2008 pea season in quite some detail. We reviewed the outcome of the crops we grow in Chichester for seed which we will be planting next year and just making sure that all our requirements are covered, so we’ve got a meeting early next week to review the demand going forward both for our UK retail business and for export, we’ll need to plan for that, so that’s occupying our minds in some detail at the moment.

I’ll let you know how things progress over the next few days.

Posted by Colin Wright at 6:49 PM | Permalink

You’ll see from the photographs that I’ve taken this morning that I’m not in England we’re back in italy for our Soya harvest staying in a place named Ferrara (there’s a very nice cathedral which I’ve just taken a snap of and also the castle).

Our guide is Romolo who works for a company called Marollo who we do business with here in Italy, so a change of scenery and a change of diet!

As far as peas are concerned, as you know you know we’ve finished in Lowestoft at the weekend and we’ve only got two out of the five groups working up in Hull. We anticipate the harvest will finish there either saturday or sunday of this week, so it’s taking time to finish the last little bit, but it’s obviously important that we make the best of that…

Some interesting developments later in the week as we go through how we’re going to manage against our requirements with the stock that we’ve got so some interesting meetings coming up—our Italian customers to whom we supply peas are over to see us on wednesday and thursday so I’ll let you know how that goes.

Posted by Colin Wright at 8:25 AM | Permalink

Hi, it’s Colin, this is the first Saturday we’ve had off for eight weeks and it makes quite a change and certainly a bit of adjustment…

As you know, we finished up harvesting at Lowestoft yesterday. We’re still going at Hull so we’re keeping in touch with them by phone.

I’m taking taking the opportunity this morning to take Doris down to the beach for a bit of a swill-off. We’re only about five minutes away from the coast which is a nice place to live but unfortunately, we’ve been so busy we haven’t really had the chance to come down for a while—but it’s a very pleasant morning as you can see:-)

Posted by Colin Wright at 8:27 AM | Permalink

James here, this is Matt, a fieldsman from the Silver area which covers the area to the East of Hull and hopefully, I think the photo is good enough for you to see in the background the lovely North Sea on a sunny day. So we’re right on the clifftop here on the East coast. The field that we’re in is probably this is the last field we’ll harvest this season—it’s hanging on a bit longer than the others and my guess is that it’s the coastal effects which mean the temperature has been that little bit cooler here over the summer months.

Posted by at 7:14 PM | Permalink

The smart young gentleman in the white coat is John. He’s been with us for a couple of seasons now and he’s our chef here on the taste panels.

He’s studying at Cambridge University and this is his last taste panel for this year. No doubt he’ll be back next year. I’ll talk to you later

Posted by Colin Wright at 8:50 AM | Permalink

It’s Friday the 4th of August, harvest day 46 in East Anglia and our last day down here. We should finish early evening if everything goes to plan…

On reflection it’s been a pretty arduous campaign. What’s interesting of course is that we’ve come out of the hottest, dryest July on record and four days into august we’ve already had more rain than the average rainfall for the entire month!

We’ve have over 50mm of rainfall in two-and-a-half days which has caused some interruptions to our progress as it was difficult to travel in the field. We’ve had a similar situation at Hull, but we’ve now got five or six days left up there to complete everything.

I’ll talk to you a bit later on.

Posted by Colin Wright at 7:18 AM | Permalink

James here, the photo I just sent is of the crop I photographed before. We’ve been following its growth stages and it’s being harvested today.

I thought this would give you a feel for the rate a crop grows and how quickly it gets to harvest.

Althought looking at the photo, the weather conditions this morning make you feel it’s a completely different season to the previous photos. It’s 10 degrees and very chilly, more like a winter’s day rather than the hot summer that we’ve had (the forecast is to pick up again over the weekend and into next week).

We’re getting less and less crops now as we’re getting towards the end of the harvest here in Hull. There’s still a fair way to go yet, and everyone’s getting tired after 45 days on the trot like this with no respite. We won’t be under pressure as much next week and we can see the end coming. We just need to do everything we can to get the most out of the crops that are left…

OK, that’s it for now.

Posted by at 6:06 AM | Permalink

Hi, this is Colin. I thought you might be interested this scene—here we are out in Norfolk in a crop of petits pois. The reason we’re out here is I’ve got Fergie with me who’s our managing director.

The gentleman in the pickup in the photo on the left is Mike Skipper. He’s the general manager for Anglian Pea Growers and he just reckoned it was too wet to get out of his car. In the middle picture, you can see Fergie in the white wellingtons, Richard Hurst who’s chairman of Anglian Pea Growers and Garry, the fieldsman who works for me. I took the snap on the right because I thought it was interesting also that at the beginning of the season I bought myself some new wellies and this is the first time i’ve had them on and here we are with just two days to go! I thought you’d find it it amusing how clean they are, but probably by the end of this half-hour they wont be:-)

Posted by Colin Wright at 12:44 PM | Permalink

Bit late with the report today but events have overtaken us—been a bit hectic today for one reason or another…

We’ve achieved a first today which was to actually be in a pea field and get wet;-)

We’ve had some fairly heavy showers in both our areas over the past couple of days and had a good rain down here last night which was good, although I fear it’s a little bit late as we should be finished in the south towards the end of this week.

It’s been a good day for peas today—ideal temperature around 21 degrees with a bit of rain in it. It’s been good.

On the home front, my wife is up north and my son, partner and daughter are away on holiday so I’ve inherited Fred, so I’ve come home and have two dogs to look after and my dinner to cook. In the dinner department, might have simply fish again—easy to do and it’s damn good:-)

I’ll catch up with you in the morning.

Posted by Colin Wright at 6:43 PM | Permalink