East Midlands

.: Benchmarking Through Business Clubs - Sentry Farms (Case Study)

Sentry Farms is an employee owned farming and land management company. They farm some 15,000 hectares throughout the UK including cereals, oils, livestock and dairy.

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

.: Cutting Cost - Adding Value in Red Meat - McDonald’s Restaurants (Case Study)

McDonald’s is the largest user of beef in Europe. 8–9000 cattle a week are needed to satisfy their beef requirement in the UK.

Esca Food Solutions Ltd. (formally known as McKey Food Service Ltd) was founded in 1978 and is the exclusive supplier of beef patties to McDonald’s UK. Production takes place at two plants located in Milton Keynes and Scunthorpe.

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

.: LincPork (Case Study)

Pig farmers are used to receiving new demands from customers and changing their methods in response. It can be disruptive but it’s a necessary part of serving the market and retaining customers.

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

.: Supplying to the Military (Case Study)

Providing 3 meals a day for the RAF on a budget of £1.80 per person requires tight cost control and slick logistics. When we examined a chain delivering pork legs and loin for the Defence Catering Group we found a very efficient system but also uncovered opportunities for substantial savings.

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

.: Stengthening Links in the Sausage Chain (Case Study)

Tesco have a well-deserved reputation for their excellence in supply chain management. You simply don’t become a Tesco supplier without reaching high standards of service and efficiency.

Yet even in a leading chain like this, the team uncovered tremendous scope for improvement.

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

.: Delivering a Balanced Butchery Line (Case Study)

During a project to enhance the supply chain of pork sausages to Tesco (see ‘Strengthening Links in the Sausage Chain’), we observed an outstanding example of ‘balanced production’ at Walkers Midshire Foods (sausage producers for Tesco).

This case study describes what we mean by ‘balanced production’, why this was such a good example and the benefits enjoyed by the company.

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

.: Smoothing the Flow of Cereals Through the Chain (Case Study)

By applying the ‘Value Chain Analysis’ technique, a team recruited by the Cereals Industry Forum was able to identify that almost 50% of grain delivered to Heygates mill did not meet either the allocated delivery slot or the quality specification. In other words, more than half the product fails to flow smoothly through the food chain.

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

.: Developing Long Term Relations in the Supply of Barley (Case Study)

During 2004, Coors and Frontier Agriculture introduced an industry leading supply agreement. Coors is one of the leading beer producers in the UK and Frontier Agriculture is a leading UK agri-food business which supplies Coors with malting barley.

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

.: Delighting the Consumers of Strong White Flour (Case Study)

A Cereals Industry Forum (CIF) value chain analysis project team identified five key steps to improve sales and profitability by following a 1.5kg bag of CO-OP flour from the farm to point of sale......

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

.: Improving the Profitability of Vegetable Production (Case Study)

A Food Chain Centre Value Chain Analysis (VCA) project has shown that it is possible to reduce costs by 40%, improve quality by 34%, and reduce delivery lead time by 81% in the production of leeks.

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

.: East Midlands Farmers Beat National Average for Benchmarking (Press Release - 02 Dec 2004)

A survey of over 1,200 farmers shows that the number of farmers using benchmarking has almost tripled in the space of two years. With 27% of East Midland farmers using benchmarking compared with the national average of 24%

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

.: Impact of promotions on blue cheese - Long Clawson (Case Study)

Janice Breedon from Long Clawson Dairy wanted to understand the impact of promotions on the profitability of the blue cheese market.

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

.: Developing speciality pork and beef market - James & Lucy Barclay (Case Study)

James and Lucy Barclay wanted to understand regional shopping patterns for pork and beef in order to expand their market.

Business areas:	Differentiation	Sector:	Red Meat	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

.: Yes Peas to Consumer Information - PVGA (Case Study)

Martin Riggall and Tim Mudge approached the dunnhumby Academy for consumer information to measure the effectiveness of their national marketing campaign.

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