Alan Bartlett Carrot growers to close

Bongodog

Member
Chatteris natives have been referred to as carrotcrunchers seemingly forever, what are we to call them in future ?

Many times you hear of something closing and think, well it was only a matter of time, but Chatteris losing its carrot business really is a shock.
 

Hesstondriver

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Huntingdon
huntapac taking up slack i heard ,

Massive hunterpac sale on line with cheffins 'following a change in farming policy ' - looks like brassica kit .

there's a few masseys appearing in barttlett's at chatteris too ........
 

7610 super q

Never Forgotten
Honorary Member
Yes bad choice of words there sorry. Perhaps being forced out of growing a particular crop because they couldn't/wouldn't compete on price would be better? Renting land to the big growers would then probably be an easier and more profitable thing to do.
I think you had it right first time. When I started in the mid 80's there were about 40 farms in West Wales growing organic carrots on a small scale ( 10-20 acres each), nice little income with about half a dozen locals employed on each farm......quite often the carrots were hand forked out, less said about that the better.
Perhaps 1, maybe 2 growers left. The job seems to be in the hands of large scale growers growing 1000's of acres, with a thousand acres of organic carrots on the side.
Now the large scale growers are getting the push. Where next ? Import the lot from Poland and be done with it ?
 

woodylane

Member
Location
Lancashire
Massive hunterpac sale on line with cheffins 'following a change in farming policy ' - looks like brassica kit .

there's a few masseys appearing in barttlett's at chatteris too ........
Huntapac going out of growing brassica’s in Lancashire and another big grower taking on some of the land.
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
It’s odd. My neighbouring small farmer in his 60’s packed up farming the land next door, let it out and now works in a carrot gang anywhere from Suffolk to Yorkshire working all hours and driving miles or staying over in a caravan wherever the work is. Good pay but he says they can’t get any local labour. Maybe they aren’t willing to lead an itinerant lifestyle. World’s gone mad in my opinion.
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
Do you blame them? I did travelling for work for a good number of years and it's sh!t.
I don’t blame them at all. Wouldn’t do it myself if I had a choice. I had years of travelling, living in shared houses and rough B and B’s in crappy industrial areas when I started out in engineering. Just observing how things have changed, and it’s not for the better IMO.
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
Market gardens need to come back, commutable from home daily. Like so many things, we never should have let them go.
I agree but people go for the big bucks not the steady life. I’m all for the steady life and the satisfaction of the job itself even if the financial returns aren’t that great. However I am finding less and less people want or can afford to share that experience!
 

Kidds

Member
Horticulture
Market gardens need to come back, commutable from home daily. Like so many things, we never should have let them go.
They are coming back.
As for letting them go, you chose to shop in supermarkets instead. Maybe not you personally but generally that is what the public did for various reasons and the supermarkets don't want to deal with market gardeners. TBH most market gardeners didn't want to deal with supermarkets anyway.
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
We used to have a garden and small producer veg auction in town every week. It was actually more of a community hub than we maybe realised at the time. I’d be happy to see it come back. I seemed to have time for a decent veg plot up to about 10 years ago. Not enough staff now.
 

Lowland1

Member
Mixed Farmer
They are coming back.
As for letting them go, you chose to shop in supermarkets instead. Maybe not you personally but generally that is what the public did for various reasons and the supermarkets don't want to deal with market gardeners. TBH most market gardeners didn't want to deal with supermarkets anyway.
A lot of what i see (vegetables) in supermarkets is very poor quality hidden behind the packaging. However i don’t think the general public is prepared to take the time to choose quality. The problem re people like Barletts is that they bid far too low in order to get the business in doing this they wipe out some of the competition but they then find they can’t make a sustainable profit.
 

Kidds

Member
Horticulture
So all the downward pressure on prices we always blame the supermarkets for is actually self inflicted by growers?

As for the public choosing on quality, I am not sure they know what quality looks like. I do know the produce on display is definitely not the quality that ever left our farm gate. No doubt transport and time does not help, having a "central" distribution centre in Kent is not great for produce grown north of Watford Gap.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 78 42.9%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 63 34.6%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 16.5%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 5 2.7%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

  • 1,286
  • 1
As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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