Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Look at all possibilities – online is way forward
The message is coming over loud and clear to farmers from the food and drink market – if you want to survive and thrive, start adding value, Bridgwater and West Somerset MP Ian Liddell-Grainger tells Defra Secretary George Eustice
DEAR George, You may recall the time when virtually every seaside resort in the West Country had at least one shop offering to send clotted cream by post.
You went in and paid your money and they would pack the cream into a little tin and send it off for you. You could either send it to a friend or arrange to have it delivered to yourself after you had arrived home, or for Christmas.
But then it all got stopped because someone in authority decided that it was unsafe. The cream might go off in transit and someone might get food poisoning and die – a view which ignored the fact that clotted cream originally arrived in Cornwall from the Middle East (where it’s known as kaymak) where it was used as a way of preserving dairy produce without refrigeration – because the Phoenicians didn’t have fridges. Anyway, the point of all this is that in this age of online shopping I see that it is now possible to have a fullblown cream tea delivered to one’s door – or to that of a friend – clotted cream and all.
Which is not merely something to gladden the heart but demonstrates what a fantastic market there now exists for produce from the South West. Which in turn underlines a point which I made earlier this week to the effect that there are now huge opportunities out there for farmers and growers who opt to process what they produce on farm and keep the added value on their side of the farm gate.
I have seen so many successful examples, from the dairy farmers who have switched from loss-making milk to high-value ice cream, cheese and yogurt to the apple growers who were once enslaved to supermarkets and now sell high-quality juice, cider and vinegar at very respectable prices.
And the fact is, George, that while Defra’s blueprint for the future of British farming is still in such a blurry form, switching into direct selling offers a clear and well-defined path to improved profitability for many a producer. So if there’s one area of agriculture which you should be looking to support – and support generously – this is it.
What helps enormously is online selling, which means holidaymakers who come down to the South West and discover the delights of its regional produce can continue to enjoy much of it once they get home, which represents huge new opportunities for producers. Indeed, I am aware of one farm shop in the region where the majority of the Christmas trading is done online; local, direct sales accounting for only a relatively modest proportion of the December turnover. With supermarkets continuing to play a hard game on prices – to the extent of actually losing suppliers – farmers who are locked into contracts with them are facing some potentially very dark days – and not as a result of smoke from wildfires blotting out the sun.
My advice to them all would be to look at all possibilities – processing, developing niche products, direct and online selling. I really believe it’s the only sensible way forward.