The Farmers Mart Jun-Jul 2020 - Issue 69 | Page 20

20 EBCO HOLDINGS LTD JUN/JUL 2020 • farmers-mart.co.uk
BOLD STEPS, RISK AND HARD
WORK REAP REWARDS
ON an inclement Friday afternoon, I
met up with Edward Barker who runs
a large poultry operation covering
several sites and a recycling plant
based at York.
As I pulled into the recycling yard,
I was greeted by enormous piles of
scrap wood, gigantic crushing machine,
barn full of major machinery and
shredded wood waste. I was immediately
intrigued, keen to learn more
about this highly successful diversified
business.
Ed Barker is very much hands-on and
even at our distance you could see his
hands were black bright from dealing
with a piece of machinery.
As we talked, the story of this
business and its journey is one of bold
steps, risks and ultimate rewards.
Ed comes from a farming background.
H Barker & Son Ltd was initially
the family dairy farm. When the time
came, Ed’s father took on the farm as
his brother was ploughing a very different,
but highly successful furrow. Many
of you will remember the Olympic
show-jumping champion David Barker
and his famous horse, Mr Softie.
Ed’s father was a very keen engineer,
repairing and making farm machinery
at night whilst running the dairy in the
daytime. Ed left school at sixteen and
spent two years doing engineering with
his father, who shared his wealth of
knowledge and experience. With the
pressure that milk quotas were putting
on the dairy industry, Ed’s father asked
if he wanted to become a dairy farmer,
to which Ed replied ‘no’. So, the decision
was made to sell the dairy herd
and concentrate on the engineering
side full time.
So how on earth does one go from
engineering to Poultry and Re -Cycling?
The answer, as in so many things –
circumstance. Ed’s route was a simple
one, his current girlfriend of the time’s
family were turkey farmers. In the
early morning Ed was out catching
turkeys, then onto his daytime engineering
job and by 9 o’clock at night
he was hauling straw, just to get some
funds behind him as his personal goal
was to set up his own business.
It took Ed two years of hard graft to
get himself a loan, actually having to
prove to the bank manager that he was
worth the risk and that he had some
money behind him. Seem a bit harsh?
Well Ed wasn’t planning to do things by
halves. Oh no, in 1994, at the age of 21,
he secured a £100,000 loan, a bold step
indeed.
Initially, Ed rented an old beef yard
and converted it to take turkeys. His
first shed had neither running water nor
mains electric, which meant transporting
water and using generators. They then
built a further three sheds and then
bought another site. Ed had put an awful
lot of planning into the business beforehand,
which helped secure the loan and
gave him a clear path for development.
However, after two years the decision
was made to come out of turkeys, as the
popularity of turkey was very low apart
from the seasonal business, something
which Ed has always failed to understand
as turkey is superb meat and much
higher in protein than chicken. At the
time, turkey was selling less per kilo than
dog meat, thus the switch to chicken.
Nowadays, there is only one major turkey
company left in the UK.
The business continued to flourish,
they bought a further six sites and sold
one in Nottingham.They now have
eight sites in total, three of which are in
Cambridge and are rented to other producers.
The rest of the business’s sites
are in the North, which makes management
and visiting the sites easier.
With so much activity across the sites
and materials to be moved, the right
machine for the job is required. You can
see Ed pictured in front of their latest
acquisition, a Mercedes Unimog. Ed is
very impressed with it; previously they
had a FASTRAC which whilst being a
workhorse, was costing far too much in
maintenance. Ed said to me that not only
will the Unimog pull any size of Ag trailer
or tanker but also large flat beds as well,
all with ease and the massive bonus is a
20% fuel saving! South Cave tractors the
suppliers of the Unimog have been great,
right from the initial discussions and test
drive, prior to purchase and the subsequent
service and back up.
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