Feeding Britain sustainably - David Simmons, MD of Riviera Produce

Tight profit margins, producing food at scale and caring for the environment – fifth-generation Cornish farmer David Simmons discusses the challenges of farming today. His family business supplies UK supermarkets with 70 million cauliflowers, broccoli and cabbages a year, so there’s a good chance you’ve eaten their produce.

While telling the story of how Riviera Produce has expanded beyond recognition over the past 40 years, David also shares insights on the importance of a sustainable food supply chain to the UK, the vital role of seasonal workers from abroad – and how there’s a lot more to Cornwall than tourism.

Transcript

Mark Greaves:

My guest today is David Simmons, managing director at Riviera Produce, one of the UK's largest growers of Brassicas at their Cornish farm. I'm Mark Greaves from PKF Francis Clark, and I'll be your host. Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast to get updates and notifications on when our latest episodes are available. Hi David. How are you today?

David Simmons:

Enjoying the beautiful sunshine here in sunny Cornwall.

Mark Greaves:

A good mention for Cornwall getting some sun after perhaps a more interesting summer at that stage. Perhaps for our listeners, I mentioned about Brassicas in the introduction. Could you give us a definition of Brassicas?

David Simmons:

Brassicas encompass a lot of common vegetables which people eat. So the main ones that we grow are cauliflowers, broccoli, cabbages. That would be spring greens, pointed cabbage, Savoy, and also, which we don't grow down here, but are probably common to a lot of people, sprouts and red and white cabbages.

Mark Greaves:

Now, many people might not have heard of your organisation directly, but they probably bought something from you in the supermarket side. Could you perhaps give us an idea of the scale of your operations?

David Simmons:

Yeah, we farm 8,000 acres in Cornwall, and we supply the major supermarkets in the UK, delivering to all over the UK seven days a week.

Mark Greaves:

And how many Brassica plants would that include over a year?

David Simmons:

Well, we're about 70 million plants.

Mark Greaves:

Well, okay. I think that's a good idea of scale at that particular moment. And Riviera itself, it's got a long history, like many of other podcast guests. You started something like 150 years ago. How did it all start?

David Simmons:

Yeah, well that was before my time, but one of our cousins passed it across to my great-grandfather, and he brought it through. And it's gone through the generations. It's been passed from generation to generation. And now Tom, my son, has just joined the business. Well he joined 10 years ago actually, so he's been here quite a while now. And he's the sixth generation to be farming in West Cornwall.

Mark Greaves:

That's quite interesting. From our podcast, we've talked a lot about family businesses and passing down family businesses at that stage. How did you become involved and how long have you been involved?

David Simmons:

Well, from a very early age as a child, I remember out helping on the farm. My mum would try and pester me to go to the beach, but no, I wanted to go out on the farm. So from almost when I could walk, I'd be out on the farm working. And I remember at one stage my father saying, "You're too light to go on a planter, so you can't go on the planter." So I went down across the field and dragged a half underweight or 25 kilo weight up across the field to put on the planter, to actually enable me to do a bit of planting.

Mark Greaves:

Now I'm fairly sure that probably breaches current health and safety guidelines at that stage, and probably child labour possibly at that stage.

David Simmons:

Well, In those days we used to have quite a few children working on the farm, which was great actually, because it employed all the local youth. And at planting time, it'd be quite a busy time for us employing the local school kids, sort of the teenage school children anyway.

Mark Greaves:

That's a great example of how things have actually changed in the modern world, but we're only going back 40 years or something like that, 40 or 50 years.

David Simmons:

Yeah. I've been in the business... Well I came home from college in 1982 and worked in the business right through since then. So I've effectively been working in a management capacity for 41 years, which is quite a long while now.

Mark Greaves:

When you came back, what sort of role did you play when you came back into it? I assume you weren't running a planter around with some extra weights on the back.

David Simmons:

When I came home from college, we had 160 acres and we employed one man. And in the first week, that man left. So I was there by myself with my father and my grandfather at that time. So the three generations working together on a typical mixed Cornish farm. We would have potatoes, pigs, beef, dairy herd, Brassicas, that's cauliflowers and spring greens, and cereals. So we used to do all the lot ourselves. So I would milk the cows in the morning, then go out and cutting the cauliflowers, packing the cauliflowers, and then milking the cows in the evening again. And that was my daily routine.

Mark Greaves:

I always like some things like that, that describe properly how hard certain professions actually work. And farmers work very long days, to say the least.

David Simmons:

I'm afraid it's 24/7 with farming. You're always working. You don't get days off. The cows can't be milked, you can't stop milking them for a day or two, you've got to milk them every day. And the same with the crops, they continue to grow. So really, it's constant monitoring and constant thinking about the business, as most businesses are to be fair, but they're probably not working the hours that the farmers.

Mark Greaves:

Fairly sure no other business starts with you getting up to actually interact with animals and milking the cows, etc. at that stage. Well, that's quite a difference you're talking about there between the operation when you came into it, and the rather large scale operation it is today. Could you talk us through how that actually evolved over those 40 years?

David Simmons:

Well, I've learned some hard lessons when I first came home. I thought pigs was going to be the answer. So we expanded our pig enterprise quite dramatically in the first year. And at the end of 12 months, I sat down after spending many hours watching pigs farrow and looking after them, and looked at how much money we'd made, and we'd lost money. So I said, "Right, what's the point in doing this? It's going to lose money." So I stopped doing that.

And we went through each enterprise in a similar sort of vein. I remember picking potatoes when we were being paid 20 pounds a ton because they had scab on the potatoes, and we were losing money. It was really hard work, and we were losing money hand over fist. So we dropped that enterprise, and we went through all the enterprises like this until we concentrated on the dairy front and the Brassicas, which my father was very good at growing the Brassicas and I quite enjoyed the dairy side. So we expanded those two businesses.

And that went on for many years actually, because it was difficult to get land when I first came home. But as time went on and economic conditions got tougher on the farm, people decided to rent some land out and put some land up for sale. So we expanded our farm each year, and we got to the stage where we were up to about 100 acres of cauliflowers. And one of my, person that was quite close to me recommended having a go at speaking to the supermarkets.

So we wrote letters off to all the supermarkets to see if they would be interested in taking our produce. And one of them, Safeway at the time, gave us a call and said, "Yes, we've got somebody in Cornwall. We'd like them to come in and see you if that's possible over the next day or so."

So we invited them around and the guy came in and I said, "Basically we've got nothing here. All we've got is a shed." So he looked around and he said, "Well, let's see what we can do to try and make this acceptable for the supermarkets."

So we ended up coming up with the idea of having a refrigerated lorry trailer to use the fridge. We put some plastic curtains up to keep all the pests out, and painted it white, and got all the protocols in place. And then we started to supply Safeway.

And that went on for the first couple of years, and was quite successful, and the buyer was quite pleased with what we were doing, supplying them into the local Bristol depot, supplying the Southwest stores.

And after a while, we started expanding further and further, and one or two local growers were looking over the hedge and saying, "Well, could we come and supply our produce to you?" So we said, "Yeah, shine, let's try and work with you." So we ended up taking on a few growers, and we got to the stage where we were over half of Safeway's winter cauliflower, and they said, "I'm afraid you're not doing any more than that, and we don't allow people to have more than half the business." So we said, fair enough.

So we looked at the marketplace. At the time, Asda were importing from Spain, a lot of Spanish cauliflower, so we decided to speak to Asda. And at the time they had a category manager in place, so we spoke to that category manager, and they allowed us to actually supply them with cauliflowers and spring greens from Cornwall instead of bringing it in from Spain.

And that went very well, and we expanded very quickly on that. And within two or three years, we were supplying all of Asda's cauliflower and spring greens nationwide, all their stores in the UK, which was quite an achievement.

Mark Greaves:

No messing. Yeah.

David Simmons:

Yeah. And then after that with our success, we've had other supermarkets join us since. So we've had quite a few, the two discounters have joined us. And we've had the co-op and one or two others that have come along as well,. So the businesses continue to expand.

Mark Greaves:

That's quite interesting, a tale of the original supermarket working with you to bring you on board, which how long ago would that have been, the Safeway one?

David Simmons:

That would've been '94.

Mark Greaves:

Okay, right. You don't hear much about that nowadays or over the last 10 or 15 years about supermarkets working with their suppliers quite so much.

David Simmons:

I think there's still the opportunity there. If you've got something which they want and you've got a point of difference to what they've got on the shelf now, and it could be that you're producing a local Cornish product which is high quality and people look at and think, "Well, that's something that would fit in our local stores." I think supermarkets will then be much more accommodating and allow you to go and supply them.

Mark Greaves:

I want to come back to that supermarket relationship, because there's all sorts of tales of needing very careful management on that side. But I come back to that land comment that you made, with other farmers using you to actually come on board and produce for you, but you then potentially gradually expanding and taking over that land. That's very reminiscent of Rogers' origins. How does that work? Is it the farmers retiring and then you operating the land, buying their land, etc.?

David Simmons:

Well, margins in farming are very tough, and especially in our horticultural crops that we're dealing with. And the growers found it very difficult on the scale that they were on to actually make it work. And what tended to happen was that the grower would say, "Look, we're farming 30 acres perhaps of cauliflowers, and we can't really make it work." And we would take that land over and farm it for them, and they would come and perhaps do one of the operations for us. So they would come and perhaps plough the fields, or cultivate the fields, or even come to work for us in other ways. And then they could make the job stack up then because they had an income coming in from the work they were doing. They had the cauliflower rent from the line which we were taking on. And also, the other single farm payments which came from the EU at the time. So they could make the job stack up then. And it worked for a number of farmers that way, and it was quite successful.

Mark Greaves:

Okay. You mentioned margins there. Do you want to give our listeners a view of the kind of margins that you do make, and how you manage such a large operation on such very fine margins?

David Simmons:

Well, it is all down to scale in our sector, and our supermarkets would expect us to have a margin of between 1 and 2%. And that is pretty low when you compare it with how most businesses operate on. So unfortunately, we've got to keep expanding, and it's the old hamster scenario where you keep running faster to stand still I'm afraid. But it's a tough industry to be in. And when we get weather which perhaps isn't quite suited to what we're trying to grow and we have problems with crop, then that can put huge pressure on what we're trying to achieve.

Mark Greaves:

It is one of those, I don't think people understand quite how low margins are actually in the sector. There's some headlines about dairy occasionally, but how you actually therefore have to run it at a scale, but also you're a little at the mercy of the weather. If you have uncooperative weather for a year, that means you're into loss making territory.

David Simmons:

Well, that's what we will say. We've got a factory with no roof on it. And unfortunately, we're trying to produce all these crops with the elements of the weather, which can be favourable at times, but can also be very unfavourable, especially with the issues of frost, or if we get a very dry hot spell like it was last summer. Of course, a lot of issues.

Mark Greaves:

Also, we've got to maintain Cornish image. It's always sunny in Cornwall. We can't go away from that line on that side of things. You mentioned about having a dairy herd and running the dairy herd. How long did you keep the dairy herd and what were the factors behind the entity?

David Simmons:

Well, we kept it running until 2005, which is when I sort of sat down. And unfortunately, the supermarket business was expanding quite quickly. So all my time was being taken up with the supermarket business. And it meant that I wasn't giving a lot of attention to the dairy side. And although we had some good people involved, the margins at that time were very tight. And we sort of looked at it and we thought, "Well, I think maybe it's time to exit that now and concentrate on what we've got," a point of difference down in Cornwall. So that's what we did at the time.

Mark Greaves:

Ideal. Obviously, one of the current most discussed topics for most businesses is availability of labour. And there's been lots of headlines of farmers and the lack of supply of Eastern European labour over recent years. How have you coped with that, and what's your current view on matters?

David Simmons:

We're very fortunate, because the government has allowed the seasonal workers scheme to be in operation in the horticultural sector. And that enables us to bring people in from all around the world on a six-month visa. So they're here working for six months, then they've got to go home. It's very closely monitored and regulated, and it's pretty tough, the restrictions you've got in actually employing these people. But it enables us to have a ready-made workforce, which we can bring in to harvest our crops, because most of our crops are produced manually. They're harvested manually, most of them are. Most of them are planted manually as well. So we do need a large amount of labour, and we need people that are dedicated, prepared to work through weekends or at weekends. And odd hours as well, because when it gets very hot, there's a lot of production around. So we need as much labour as we can, so it's long hours. When it's very cold, there isn't so much growth, so we're not utilizing so much. So they've got to be a flexible labour force, as well as have the labour when we need them. And the seasonal worker scheme has worked brilliantly for our sector. It really has.

Mark Greaves:

Excellent. Do you work directly with the countries they're coming from? How do you actually recruit? How does that work?

David Simmons:

There's half a dozen labour providers which have got the license to bring these people in from abroad. So we will contact those labour providers and tell them how many people we want, when we want them, for what period of time we want them. And they will then go out into the different countries and source them from those countries, and then we will bring them on board. And once they come on board with us, we then look after their welfare, and they're living down here, and make sure that they're happy, because we want this workforce to enjoy working for us. If they enjoy working for us, we can then hopefully get them back again the next year. So it'll save on all the training, which we have to do when they first come here. So it's in our interest to make sure we keep them as happy as we can. And the majority of them are really delighted with it. They really are.

Mark Greaves:

And what sort of percentage come back?

David Simmons:

Well, we can be looking at 70%. That's what we're sort of hoping to get back. But as time goes on, they've had one or two hiccups over the last few years, so it hasn't been quite that high. But we're hoping this coming year, we're going to get that sort of figure back.

Mark Greaves:

It's quite odd that you are describing about the management of that workforce, looking after them, and all that type of stuff, which is a little bit of a contrast from actually running the farm as you originally did with your father and grandfather. A bit of an evolution there. You've now gone to hotel providing sort of.

David Simmons:

Well, you're only as good as the staff you've got working for you. And we're very fortunate we've got a fantastic workforce working for us. We've got a great HR team, which really looks after the staff, and makes sure that they feel valued and welcomed over here. And that's so important for these people, because at the end of the day, they've come from the other side of the world, left their families at home. A lot of them have never been outside their town or district before now. And they come here, and it's all totally new to them. Some of them don't speak the language. So we have to have people that can translate for them, help them to settle in, and make sure that they have... And look after their cultures as well, because they've obviously got a lot of different cultures than we have over here. So we've got to respect their cultures and make sure that we look after them.

Mark Greaves:

Okay. Coming back to the supermarket side of things, obviously there's a lot of interesting tales of food providers getting their first supermarket contract and being really excited about it, but then ending up almost being sucked into that, being dominated by the supermarkets. How do you manage that relationship, especially where you are balancing a number of different supermarkets? How do you do that?

David Simmons:

Well, they always say the honeymoon period is the tough bit. After you've gone through that, they are quite ruthless with you, and they are ruthless. Let's not beat about the bush. We are in a position where we could lose the business overnight. If you get somebody in there that doesn't like what you do, and you've let them down badly, you can lose the business overnight. So it's very important that we make sure we do a good job for us, and are customer focused.

And I know when I first started, one of the things, little tricks I used to do is going up as a little Cornish farmer to go and see all of these massive supermarkets. I used to buy a box of pasties and take out some hot pasties to them. And then of course, when you walked into the office up there, the smell would go right through the office, and everybody would look around, "Who's come now?" And of course they left Cornwall then. So it was a great way of selling Cornwall.

Mark Greaves:

Were there any particular type of pasties that you picked up on the way?

David Simmons:

Well, I better not say that at all. We all know which is our favourite pasty.

Mark Greaves:

It's all right, I'll get that after the podcast. One of the things you talk there about that very careful margins managing of that relationship, one of the things that the pandemic did do was expose about the fragility of supply chains, especially managing foreign supply chains. Has that made any difference? Is that a good thing for you being a local supplier?

David Simmons:

I think over the last couple of years really, and we saw it the last autumn with the energy crisis, how all of a sudden people realize how reliant they are on food coming from different parts of the world. And when you go into a supermarket and see empty shelves, nothing hits home to the consumer, and also our supermarket bosses of how important it is to have a sustainable supply chain. And this is what we try and drum into them when they come to visit us or when we go and see them, that it's got to be sustainable from all aspects. It's got to be economic for us to grow these crops. They've got to work with us on the quality standards, to try and make sure we utilize as much of the crop we can, and not waste too much of our crop.

But when we saw the issues they had in Spain, and they will continue to have issues in Spain, and in other parts of the world as we well do here, it just makes sense to have more British product on the shelves. So we try and encourage them to say, "Look, try and cut the food milestone, encourage British production." Because we've got a fantastic industry in the UK. The horticulture industry in the UK is superb. And what we've got to do is try and make it more accommodating for them so that we can produce more. And the seasonal worker scheme was one of the things, because let's not beat about the bush. Without the seasonal workers scheme, the horticulture industry in the UK will be finished tomorrow, and we've got to make sure that we get the help we need. Otherwise, there's no future in British horticulture, which is totally against what we should be doing.

Mark Greaves:

I want to come back to that local issues to a certain extent, but is there anything else that the government could do, or that we as a society could do to encourage that local production?

David Simmons:

Well, we always try and put British flags on what we produce or even mention Cornwall on there. So as a customer, please go out and buy as much British produce as you can, because it's on the shelves. It just needs to be dug out there and find out.

And to also to eat seasonally. I think people tend to expect that some of the veg is on the shelf 12 months of the year. And a lot of it is imported, but the taste isn't there. It's been on the road or on the sea for many days, sometimes weeks, or in a store for many weeks if not months.

And because of that, you're losing the taste. If you buy seasonally, you're buying fresh produce, which is in season. And that's when it's at its best quality and tastes at its best. So I would encourage people to look out for that.

Mark Greaves:

I suppose at the moment, it's the awkward balance in that we've been taught a lesson about fragile supply chains. We've been taught a lesson about dealing with friendly nations or non-friendly nations when we're actually outsourcing stuff. We've been taught a lesson recently about the cost of living crisis that we all need to make that awkward balance, which is really difficult for the person on the front line to look at stuff and go, "Well, wait a minute, I will pay a little more because it's local." That can be quite a difficult decision for them.

We talked in previous podcasts, with people like Adam Henson about regenerative farming. And you were talking a little about that, working with supermarkets on regenerative farming. Could you talk to us a little about how you're adapting to that?

David Simmons:

Yeah. Well, climate change is obviously a major issue, and as is protecting the environment. And we'd like to feel that we have been pioneers in Cornwall, leading the Brassica industry in the country in developing a sustainable future of growing Brassicas.

We use a minimum tillage technique where we stop ploughing a lot of the fields now, and we use a strip-till machine, which creates a small area of the ground that's cultivated. And that helps to prevent runoff, and it helps to improve the soil structure.

We also, in combination with this, use a lot of cover crops. So we're using cover crops which will hopefully improve nitrogen, improve the organic matter of the soils. And also, it will help to improve the soil structures as well. And with a good soil structure, you want to be able to, when we have these deluges of rain, for the rain to actually flow through the soil well.

And if you've got that good soil structure, the soil will absorb much more of the water, instead of it all running off the fields, out of the gates, down on the roads. Because the last thing we want is to see brown rivers going down roads, because that's thousands of years creating that soil, and we're losing it if we're not careful. So it's very important that we try and protect our soils, and look after them to ensure that they're in a state which will improve for future generations. Because we're only custodians of this ground for our lifetime, and it's important that we make sure we improve the soils which we're actually farming.

Mark Greaves:

Well, can I tie that back in... Part of your mission statement is about creating a sustainable business model for future generations. Can you talk a little about why that's important?

David Simmons:

Well, we feel it's very important, because I talked earlier about how important it is to buy British food and for us to produce more horticultural products. And what we've got to do is make sure that we keep that soil in a state where it will produce these crops. And I think if we can manage the soils properly by trying to ensure that we have as good a soil structure as we can there, then it'll give us better crops. And it'll give us, for my son who's in the business now, and hopefully his children that come into the business in future years, we'll have the benefits of that, which will then enable them to produce better crops.

And we're noticing that we don't have to put so much fertilizer on the ground by doing this sort of thing. We don't spray the crops. We're using companion crops now, which means to say we'll plant another crop within a crop to attract predators, so the predators will eat any of the insects or things which we don't want in the crops. And that will enable us to use much less pesticides and herbicides. We've reduced the amount of herbicides we've used dramatically.

So by doing all that, we're using much less chemicals. We're using much less fertilizer, artificial fertilizer. And we're hopefully improving the soils by what we're doing. So that to my mind is a sustainable future.

Mark Greaves:

A more holistic approach, which is kind of what we've fallen out of for the last sort of 30, 40, 50 years as we've got reliant on the chemicals industry to a certain extent. You mentioned your son, Tom. I understand he's taking over as managing directory, and you are going to step into a chair role shortly. How have you managed that process, and what lessons have you learned from that process?

David Simmons:

Well, in the first place, I'm very lucky and fortunate to have a son who's keen and enthusiastic, and wants to come in the business. I've got four children, and my other three daughters have gone on to do greater and better things. But my son was keen to follow me in, and he's been home like I say, 10 years. And he really enjoys it. And to walk in the office and see him with a smile on his face each day, that means a lot to me, because I know that it's a big commitment, farming. And as we've talked about earlier, the amount of hours you spend on the farm and working in the business, you have to be wholly committed to that role.

And he really loves it and he's still learning. Obviously, there's still an awful lot to do, for him to learn. So I'm still there to be able to help advise him and help steer him in the right direction. But at the end of the day, he'll take on the business. And he's got great respect from the staff now. He's a good people person. And that's what's mainly involved in our business now, being a good people person.

Mark Greaves:

Has he worked in different aspects of the business over those 10 years?

David Simmons:

Yes. When he came home from college or from university, the first thing I made him do was to go out and work in the gangs. So he worked out harvesting with the gangs in the fields, and knowing what it's like to work out in the fields, which was a good start for him.

And then since then, he's then worked in other areas of the business, and recently he's been involved in the sales. He enjoys talking to our customers and has got a great relationship with the customers. So it's good that he can go out now and speak with confidence to them about what he's doing, and what we're doing as a business. And I'm sure that going forward there, much more accepting of him being part of the business, rather than me just stepping out and bringing a new person in.

Mark Greaves:

I don't even want to think about coming back home and suddenly being thrown out into the fields to work on the gangs. "Welcome home, son. Here's your 20-hour job today." Okay, that's a family aspect. How do you involve non-family people in the management of the business?

David Simmons:

Well, from an early... As we've grown up through, as the business has grown up through, we've had to employ more and more supervisors and managers throughout the business. And the way that we've set our business up now is to have a board of directors.

So we have a board of directors. And underneath that, we have a senior management team, and then a middle management team, and supervisors. And it's very much getting the right reporting lines in place so everybody knows what their responsibilities are, what they've got to achieve, and hopefully what they're doing as part of the business. And like I say to all of them, "You're part of a big wheel. But if you haven't got one of those folks in that wheel, that business could fall." So everyone has got a very important part to play in the business, and that's what we try and push through with our staff.

Mark Greaves:

To expand out on that, what would you see as the advantages of a family business model against the disadvantages of a family business model?

David Simmons:

I think the fact that we care so much about the business and we're passionate about what we do. And I think it's trying to get that care and passion into the people that work for us. And I think with a family business, you've got that. When it's a totally employed business, then you perhaps lose some of that.

And also, I think the fact that we're there to speak to people, it's important that we as a family... We had a fun day recently where we had lots of fun and games for people out in the fields, and we had burger vans, and ice creams, and all this sort of stuff for people. And I had my father and mother there. I had myself, and my wife, and my daughters there. And obviously Tom was there with his wife as well. So it's a big family there meeting everybody. And when you show that we're part of one big family business, I think it makes a huge difference.

Mark Greaves:

Definitely on that side. We've discussed things like purpose before that, but that family thing just gives it that extra dynamic. Just a couple of other questions just quickly on that side, we've discussed before about Cornwall's geographic isolation sometimes helping entrepreneurialism down here, because we are more remote from the rest of the country. It means that we are less reliant on external advisors. We have to make things our own way down here. Do you see that as a factor?

David Simmons:

Well, I think Cornwall itself has got a lot to offer. People normally come down on holiday, and have fun and enjoy it. I met somebody yesterday who'd been down in the wet period, and I said, "It's pretty tough down here." He said, "Yeah, but we still love Cornwall. There's so much to do, and see, and do down here."

So I think Cornwall's got a tremendous selling point. And I think as an entrepreneur where you're perhaps selling the Cornish brand or the Cornish name, or you're selling something outside of the county, that's got a great advantage. And I think we should make use of that more as a county.

So I think it's a great starting point to do that. And I think as individuals down here, the population obviously is much smaller in Cornwall. But as young people, we are growing up to think on our feet, and perhaps be a little bit out of the mould. And because of that, I think the entrepreneurs come out of that, because most entrepreneurs are perhaps not quite in the mould that you expect them to be. They think a bit wacky sometimes.

Mark Greaves:

Definitely, at that stage. I also like that. We're going to sell that quote to the Cornwall tourism board earlier about still loving Cornwall in that moment. Very quickly, just on your website, I did notice looking at your videos, you do have quite a prominence of Saint Michael's Mount being shown in the distance. What's that image trying to translate to your customers?

David Simmons:

Well, I think it's quite iconic, seeing Saint Michael's Mount. And it does portray Cornwall very well. You've got the sea, and the bay around it, and the fields of hopefully cauliflower or other crops in front of it. So I do think that Saint Michael's Mount is very iconic at Cornwall, but we've got so many fantastic vistas in Cornwall. We're so lucky.

Mark Greaves:

It is. [inaudible 00:32:39] particular favourite of mine. If listeners don't know what Saint Michael's Mount is, A, look it up. And B, come and visit, because it's amazing on that side. As you're preparing to pass over managing director, what would you be most proud of during your tenure as managing director?

David Simmons:

Probably the people that we've got around us. We've worked very hard in our industry, and I'm so proud of how some people have developed over the years and come forth to take the responsibility they've had. When I first started off working on the farm, I never thought I was going to be this scale, and it's just sort of evolved. And it's only when you sit down talking to yourself, that you sit back and look at what you've achieved. But you look back and what you've achieved and you think, "Well, we've got a great staff and workforce working for us here," and you know that I can speak to any of them, and they'll do anything to help me. And I think that's pretty fantastic.

Mark Greaves:

Does pay tribute to the leader to a certain extent at that particular moment, to put them all together. But yes, that workforce, and that ethos, that purpose behind everyone at that stage, very important. Ideal.

Well, thank you, David. Really interesting hearing your story, and another very long-lived family business that looks like it's going to continue in that vein. Fascinating to hear about your story and the expansion of the business itself. And thank you to our audience for listening to our latest episode of Business Noodles and Doodles. We hope you've enjoyed the conversation as much as we have, and don't forget to subscribe to the podcast to receive updates and notifications of our latest episodes.