Potato Review

www.potatoreview.com POTATO REVIEW MAY/JUNE 2023 47 READER PROFILE What experiences have helped to shape your career and inspire you? At the very start, I didn’t have an engineering degree or any such quali cation, just an understanding of the potato industry learnt though listening to the customers. Like many of my generation, I am self-taught. ere are quite a few of us out there. I don’t think it’s held me back, and I’m not blinkered by what I might have been taught. I guess I think outside the box, and that’s what’s most important. Lots of things have shaped my career. One of the most important experiences was around 1978 when I was working for Darenth Automation Ltd after the cup nal, and Keith Stevens really impressed on me the importance of respecting other people and their views, how you should turn up on time and do a good job, and don’t make promises you can’t keep. ese are things I still value today. I’ve also met some really inspiring people along the way in the potato industry. Spending many an hour with fellow manufacturers at agricultural shows and on-site visits - chewing the cud and learning on the hoof. What are your main goals currently? Presently the main goal for PACE is R&D and developing new machines. We are right on that at the moment. Introducing new equipment is our top priority going forward. Not to give too much away, but let’s see what transpires at this year’s British Potato show in November. e machine is currently out being tested and should be ready to launch at the show. Secondly, we are looking at how our team performs. We only have a small team, so we’re focusing on being as e cient as possible. We’re looking at training, recruiting apprentices and re ning our systems and processes. Lastly, I’m looking at succession and how the business develops and continues for the future. Tell me a little about your business successes and failures and what you have learned from them. e biggest success to date was a project where we supplied a company in Burton upon Trent. We supplied three robots which had to work in sync with other equipment - conveyors, palletisers and wrappers. It is the most complicated project we’ve ever taken on. Obviously, we have lots of experience installing the individual elements, but before this project, we had never combined them all in one line at a business that was running 24/7 365. Getting it right was critical. Another project that springs to mind was undertaken in Jersey in the late 1990s. We were working for a farmer called Ken Hewland. Ken was a really innovative farmer growing Jersey Royals. Jersey Royals need treating gently, and at the time, most of the bagging machines were mechanical weighers with a ighted elevator to transport the crop up and were put in a 25kg sack. ese sacks went over to the mainland and would be split open and repacked into smaller packs. e whole process was ine cient, and the potatoes could easily be damaged. We redesigned one of our weighers for Ken – this is the model we call the Gemini today. We designed the machine to have a 20-degree angle, so there was a minimal drop, and it proved to be one of the gentlest potato-handling machines. ey even tested it with the electronic potato at the time, which was designed to detect the damage caused by movement, and it passed with ying colours! We were delighted with our e orts for Ken, and so was he. In the early days, there were obviously failures, but thinking about them now, we learned from them and improved the equipment as a result. It doesn’t matter how many failures there are. As life is a big learning curve, swerving it is not always the best way. What’s important is how you manage them and keep going. As a business, I like to think I have an eye for detail. Hopefully, I’m passing this on to the members of our team, which helps increase productivity and quality of the equipment which we provide to our customers. How has your own career outlook changed over the years? When I rst started PACE, I didn’t think this would last long. Obviously, I was wrong, and here we are - respected in the industry and inspiring our competition to try and keep up with us. However, things have got more interesting as time has passed, with lots of new things coming to market and capturing my attention. It’s never been boring. I always get up excited about what will happen on the day, whether it be meeting a new client, installing a system or designing something new. Getting involved with robots in 2007 really changed my outlook on automation. at took us into several new markets and gave us a new way of delivering packing lines. What challenges is the industry facing at the moment and what more could be done to meet and overcome these? ere’s always a challenge, no matter which industry you’re in. However, Brexit and Covid have had a real impact on the potato industry. ese two things coming so close together have really a ected the potato industry. ere’s been a reduction in casual labour coming over from Europe, which has put pressure on growers. Covid has changed the public’s perception of food and the importance of homegrown produce. However, there are fewer growers than there were 25 years ago. When I rst started, there were 10 or 20 times more growers. So today, we have fewer growers, each planting more potatoes. I’ve seen many small growers leave the industry and focus on arable crops. I’ve seen quite a few farms leave farming all together owing to the pressure of trying to make a living. ose smaller farms that are still in business are increasingly looking at automation as they can’t get the sta . However, investments need to be paid for and maintaining a margin when supermarkets and the public, in general, want cheaper food is another pressure point. What tips do you have for the future generation? For anyone entering the potato industry as a manufacturer, a supplier or a grower, it’s not rocket science. You have to be committed. You need to be realistic and be able to work as a team. At the end of the day, no one person can do everything. You have to be part of a team. Getting on with people is crucial. You need to be able to get on with people, and that’s been my mantra since day one. “No one person can do everything. You have to be part of a team. Getting on with people is crucial.”