Wolds Produce Ltd, based in Pocklington near York, has completed the acquisition of WM Quarrie (Potato Marketing) Ltd for an undisclosed sum.
Established in 2004 by Simon Tootell and local farmer Simon Foster, Wolds Produce was set up as a potato trading business offering crops from the York area to packers; directors Tim Foggin and Graham Bennett then joined the business in 2010.
Over the last three years, its crisping operation has doubled in volume with its customers supplying around 80% of all the crisps in the UK market – these include Walkers, Seabrook, the Tayto Group and Yorkshire Crisps.
The company has grown to become a major potato supplier into the crisping, chipping, ware, and seed industries across the whole of the UK.
The business has also expanded its specialist potato seed production operation with Wolds Produce a supplier of high-quality seed for commercial ware crops. As part of its growth trajectory, it last year acquired 26% of WM Quarrie, run by Bill Quarrie and Stuart Fox.
The deal included a call option which Wolds Produce has now taken up with the acquisition of the remaining shareholding completing on 29th June 2021.
Director Tim Foggin said: “Back in 2013, we were supplying around 10,000 tonnes of crisping potatoes, 15,000 tonnes of free-buy ware sales, and 3,000 tonnes of seed – with a very small team. At that time there was still a lot of spot-market sales, but that has shifted massively over recent years with changing weather patterns making buyers move more towards the certainty of contracts. We, therefore, looked at where we thought the industry was heading, and took the decision to specialise in areas where we could see growth opportunities, namely focussing on expanding our seed and crisping markets.”
Seed director Graham Bennett, who has been behind the growth of the seed business, added: “Following the acquisition of WM Quarrie, as well as investment in some key appointments over the last two years, in 2021 we will be supplying over 40,000 tonnes of potatoes into the crisping industry and have a seed business supplying over 15,000 tonnes, making us one of the largest independent seed suppliers in the UK. Andrew Johnston joined us back in September 2019, and his many years as a farm manager has already brought a new dimension to our business – his technical knowledge on growing seed is invaluable. The addition of two such well-known and experienced seed professionals as Bill Quarrie and Stuart Fox will give another welcome boost to our specialist team.”
Simon Tootell, managing director, added: “This acquisition marks another major key step in our growth and, like many sectors, we are aware of the need to attract new talent into our industry. We are now actively looking for up-and-coming people to join both our crisping and potato seed operations as the business continues to expand and move forward. We recently appointed Mark Southwell to our crisping team to look after our growers in the South and East of England – these are challenging times with Brexit and Covid still a threat across all industries, but we reached a point where we needed to take a bit of a risk and it has really paid off. We are very excited about the next few years and hope that the vaccine programme brings things a bit closer to normality over the coming months.”
