Arthur's Organics Case Study
Lead Name: Graham Brooks
Address: Arthur Street Trading Company, 2 Woodyard Cottage, Jubilee Lane, Rise, East Yorkshire HU11 5BN
Telephone:
Email:
Website: www.arthursorganics.com
Open to the public: No
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About Arthur's Organics
Arthur’s Organics (originally Arthur St Trading) is an organic growing and delivery Co-Op originally based in Hull, and now based in the village of Rise near Hull. They mainly sell veg boxes, with some other goods sourced from Suma food Co-Op.
Their story stretches back some 30 years, when founder members set up a food buying Club and later Co-Op (Peeps) as an offshoot of a housing Co-Op, now charity (Giroscope).
They are now based in a walled garden that has been an organic growing site since 1999.
This is the transcript of a recorded interview that took place while workers and volunteers were digging over a strip of land in the walled garden. Several members contributed to the answers, but the most notable contributors were Dennis and Graham, the latter being a founding member.
You can listen to the interview on our YouTube channel here.
I bought a locally sourced organic salad at a restaurant the other day, and to be honest it was quite painfully expensive; why is this?
Well you’ve just answered your own question. We don’t get subsidies. We pay rent for this land, whereas farmers can live off subsidies, so they are able to sell to supermarkets at a ridiculously cheap price. So if you want to use our stuff it’s going to be more expensive than a supermarket. And most restaurants are on a tight budget, so they’re going to go for the cheap stuff.
So what is the premium you get for growing organic?
It depends, our own stuff is probably competitive, because we have to be. It probably doesn’t cover our full labour costs by a long way. It’s not profitable even if we did sell a lot of it.
But we don’t have an offer all year round, see that’s the problem in England; we have a short growing season. We have plenty for about 3 months of the year (July, August and September). The rest of the year we’ve got very little, so we have to buy in.
So to supply a restaurant consistently all year round we would have to buy in most of it.
And we are the middle men, so there is a premium already, and then we add our bit and the price has gone up.
When you speak to restaurants about supplying them, what do they say?
They say, “yeah that’s great”’, and then we never hear from them again, and that’s several restaurants, and retailers too. We have supplied one or two in the past, but very small orders that then fizzle out.
Another problem is that the large catering suppliers supply everything ready washed and ready prepared, as well as cheaper. Our stuff comes with the soil on. We could prepare it, but then we would have to put the prices up.
What proportion of the veg that you supply is grown here?
If we take our 10 item box this week as an example, 7 of those items will have been grown here. And where possible we try to use other local growers.
Well, it has shrunk over the years (local suppliers). Before we took this over 6 years ago it had been an organic market garden for 17 years, and it was part of a network that had group certification with the Soil Association. The Soil Association doesn’t do group certification any more, so everyone has to pay individually. And because there’s no money in this sort of business there’s no legacy, so when the current generation retires almost all of it will come to an end.
There is one farm that has certification, but also has additional income from arable, which is sold nationally; and from wind generation.
Basic economics is the biggest stumbling block. (It requires) mad dogs prepared to do it for nothing.
There was the idea that the premium that you get for organic would cover the additional cost, but is it not doing that?
No. And in the current economic climate there are going to be people that would prefer to eat organic that are going to have to make the choice to go back to supermarkets. Because that is a saving they can make and still keep food on their plate.
It’s hard enough to get people to eat veg, let alone organic veg.
This is actually the worst time of year to sell, because people are away, and they are often growing their own. And it’s when we have our own produce. And this affects the whole supply chain, including our main suppliers who are also growing their own produce (in Tadcaster). This year they are really worried that the demand won’t pick back up at the end of the summer.
You were originally a Hull based company. Where are you delivering now?
We are still doing the same, if anything it’s contracted, because it wasn’t cost effective to do individual drops in small villages – driving several miles to deliver one box. Instead, we get them to come here to pick up their boxes. As an incentive we throw in extra produce to those who pick up rather than have a delivery.
We have been considering running something complementary that will actually be profitable, for example a cafe or restaurant, or catering for events. But we don’t have the time to do it, so it would have to be someone who is motivated to take it on. We need some young, enthusiastic social rebels to join in.
Do you have the facilities or capacity to do that here?
We would need extra buildings and infrastructure to do it here, and we’d need to have a conversation with the land owners. There is the possibility of doing it as a mobile venture.
Would developing your wholesale market help?
Yes, it would change the dynamics here, we’d be selling more, but the processes and infrastructure would stay the same. We have been selling wholesale to a Hull shop for years.
We do encourage buyers groups too, where people buy in bulk together and save money. But our uptake is negligible.
Tell me about the Soil Association accreditation.
Well, it’s about £700 a year, and I’ve been doing it for about 30 years now, so I’m able to do it efficiently and in a way that isn’t too time consuming. But of course that doesn’t represent £700 of Veg, it’s £700 of profit.
One of the other local producers doesn’t apply for accreditation, as they don’t see any advantages.
Actually for a lot of people the word ‘organic’ is off-putting. They say “oh, that’s not for me” or “I tried some once and I didn’t like it”’. They associate it with food for the rich.
What about markets - farmers’ markets etc?
The problem with harvesting for an event is that if you don’t sell at the event then probably won’t have another opportunity to sell it.
And there doesn’t seem to be the demand for farmers markets anyway. Very few have survived, those that have are tiny, with few customers.
If there was a local food producers group that wasn’t organic would you be willing to join?
Yes, it’s our choice to be organic.
Final Thoughts?
Sorry to be so negative, but on the positive side, if it did pay this would be an amazing job.