West Midlands

.: Benchmarking Through Business Clubs - David Craig (Case Study)

David Craig runs the family’s arable farm on 664 hectares in West Shropshire. He has always understood the importance of detailed costings and the value of making comparisons with others.

Business areas:	Business Clubs	Sector:	Cereals	Region:	n/a

.: Overcoming Barriers to Benchmarking - Neil Furniss (Case Study)

Neil Furniss runs a 360 hectare family farm near Newport. He has been benchmarking his farm performance since 1990 through year on year comparison of production data.

Business areas:	Business Clubs	Sector:	Cereals	Region:	n/a

.: Benchmarking Through An Arable Group (Case Study)

Arthur Hill and Bruce Udale are two of the founding members of the Shropshire Management Group. Arthur is first and foremost an arable farmer, with some livestock enterprises, but has diversified into some non food ventures and is benchmarking on his arable business for the first time. Bruce is a mixed farmer, who has a history of benchmarking through his poultry unit.

Business areas:	Business Clubs	Sector:	Cereals	Region:	n/a

.: Benchmarking Through Business Clubs - Stagrazers (Case Study)

Tim Downes and Gareth Hotchkiss are two members of the Stargrazers grassland discussion group. Tim has 145 organic Freisian dairy herd just south of Shrewsbury, and Gareth has a herd of 250 dairy cows near Church Stretton in Shropshire, and he also has a broiler unit on the farm.

Business areas:	Business Clubs	Sector:	Dairy	Region:	n/a

.: The Varied Benefits of a Modern Marketing Co-operative (Case Study)

Richard Mann and Michael Timms, from Warwickshire are both members of Meadow Quality Ltd – the farmer owned livestock cooperative.

Business areas:	Collaboration	Sector:	Red Meat	Region:	n/a

.: Beefing up the Chain for Better Food Service (Case Study)

The price of beef can go up and down with the tide, and this tends to put many farmers off the prospect of investing in extra cattle. All the businesses involved in a Value Chain Analysis project by the Food Chain Centre agreed that establishing a stable price along the whole chain would benefit all of them.

Business areas:	Collaboration	Sector:	Red Meat	Region:	n/a

.: A Masterclass in Potato Packing (Case Study)

A Food Chain Centre Masterclass carried out by the SMMT Industry Forum examined the flow of potatoes through the processing plant near Lichfield with the aim of improving processes as throughput increased by 50%.

Business areas:	Production Excellence	Sector:	Fresh Produce	Region:	n/a

.: Developing a marketing strategy for a local organic dairy - Dairy House (Case Study)

The owners of The Dairy House wanted to know what consumers liked and disliked about their yoghurt, cream and cheese products.

Business areas:	Differentiation	Sector:	Dairy	Region:	n/a

.: Farmer Champions

A series of 16 short film clips illustrating a range of successful farm business strategies from the four main agri-business sectors. They are ideal support material for lectures, workshops, seminars and conferences focussing on farm business strategy.

Business areas:	Business Strategy	Sector:	Cereals Fresh Produce Dairy Red Meat	Region:	n/a

.: Using Consumer Information to Select the Right Value Added Path - D. Southall & Sons (Case Study)

Paul Southall wants to create a point of difference for his English runner beans. He approached the dunnhumby Academy for information to help him understand the runner bean market.

Business areas:	Differentiation	Sector:	Fresh Produce	Region:	n/a

.: Finding New Outlets for Locally Produced Food - Localproduce.com (Case Study)

Identifying suitable outlets for locally produced foods was one of the major issues for Annette Macdonald. Annette knew that consumer information could help her to pinpoint the areas where there was the highest concentration of potential customers for locally produced food.

Business areas:	Differentiation	Sector:	n/a	Region:	n/a

.: Finding 170,000 New Customers - Robert Kynerston (Case Study)

The challenge for many farmers who are adding value to their products is to understand the potential market, what type of people are likely to buy their products and identify where these people live.

Robert Kynerston is typical and through the Food Chain Centre, Robert was amongst a group of farmers and food businesses that were able to benefit from a consumer classification known as ACORN developed and owned by CACI Ltd.

Business areas:	Differentiation	Sector:	Dairy	Region:	n/a