'Successfully adding value'

摘要

Last year we talked about surviving in the mushroom industry. I suggested that we might have a sensible exchange rate between the euro and the pound, unfortunately we haven't. We have also talked about improving our productivity, we talked about cutting costs, we talked about price increases, we can talk about diversifying but one thing we haven't talked about in the past is the business of adding value. Tony is going to talk about Golden Crumb, the business that he's developed to add value to hismushrooms. In 1935 my grandfather, who was married with a child on the way, thought mushroom growing would be a good cash crop between tomatoes. The family has been involved ever since, and I came to work in the fungus business after university in 1984.It can be quite difficult being a third generation when you have an extended family, with multiple opinions and many stakeholders. Golden Crumb was formed in 1989, and I became interested in the potential as a market from our produce. Unfortunately it was not well run and did not pay the bills on time so I took it over in 1991 having decided that I would get our money back. Naivety was probably one of my main qualities at the time and my calculations on the back of an envelope took me into a business, in the middle of a recession, that took me 4 years to understand. I ran the place part time until 1994 when I decided that more adventure was needed, so I exited the family businesses.