Ed Garthwaite's Presentation to Centenary Meeting

Ed Garthwaite started with a comment on his audience:-

The first thing I noticed when I came into the room was the energy. So many people so engaged it is fantastic. Ed told a bit about his story from farmer to farm shop owner. He explained how his father had always believed that there was something better that could be done with the meat from their farm.

“We had a redundant set of farm buildings in the middle of Yorkshire at Wakefield and six million people within an hour's drive. We had a vision of selling meat from our own farm. There was no butcher in the family, no retailer in the family but there was a belief.

“We embarked upon a conversion of the building and in October 1999 we opened the doors – me, my mum, sister and we employee one butcher. Nineteen years on, there are 145 of us work at Blacker Hall. Our turnover is six and a half million this year, our wage target percentage is 31%, our gross profit is 52%. They are the numbers that really anchor the business and ensure that it goes forward.”

Ed went on to describe how his business has progressed and how it will continue to evolve. The business rode on a wave of interest in local food, provenance and were dragged along with it.

There were stumbling blocks along the way and Ed had hoped that they would be overcome until it dawned on him one day that hope is not really a strategy, it is just a wish.

“Unless we do something about it something all we will get is more of the same. If you want a different outcome you need to push something different in at the beginning. That has been a common thread through Blacker Hall.”

As he experienced the ups and downs as he grew the team, Ed felt that there was a common thing when it all works out.

“I realised that it is about us getting the right people. Then I think back I don't ever remember writing an advert, “Wanted at best a average, occasionally turns up on time, now and again enthusiastic guy to join our team”.

“What I picked up on is that we have to be attractive to those people. What is it that makes the people the right people. The first thing is, they must share our vision. For them to share the vision, there has to be a vision. So what is it that we are trying to achieve.

“The second thing is, it is those people who come not because they like what we are doing right now but they are the ones who come because they like why we do it and what we are going to do next.

“That's ok but who are the right people?

“Those who share our vision. Those who come on board, not because they like what we are doing, the ones who like why we do it and where we are going.

“Our most successful recruits have come on board to help us solve a problem. There is a cultural thing that I hope we have at Blacker Hall which the honesty of knowing where we are doing well and where we have to improve. The people who have come on board when we have said to them 'this is what we are doing but in our cafe at the moment I believe that our service is not good enough'.

“The people who get that, see that and share the vision for being better will engage with us.”

Ed stressed the importance of vision:-

“When we opened our farm shop nineteen years ago we were going to take the cattle from our own farm, we were going to put my dad's picture on the wall, we were going to dry age it in a fridge, we were going to sell a fantastic sirloin steak. Dry aged with my dad's picture. People came in and said 'that is great'.

“On the way here I called in at an M&S service station and there it is, a dry aged sirloin steak. There is a picture of a guy who may of produced it on the pack. So for us now we have to be pushing forward, we have to be advancing, we have to be developing but it is finding the thing that is different for our customers.

“People do not buy what you do, they buy why you do it. This applies to the transaction which says 'will you come and work for me' as well. The second bit – what you do – simply proves what you believe. When we are under pressure we have to stay true to our core and our values.”

Ed shared his vision for Blacker Hall – to be nationally recognised as a must visit destination when you come to Yorkshire.

“We don't just want to be a once a year destination, we want to appeal to local people who believe what we believe, who get what we get about food.

“Our mission, how we are going to get there? By being exceptional, an eating experience, a shopping experience built on this idea of great great service. That is what we are about and we developed that twelve years ago.

“We have to have a fantastic team that are proud and passionate. We have got to make our customers feel a certain way. We have to be consistent to hold on to that reputation. Then we have to have some values – respect, integrity, accountability, trust and loyalty.

“Purely by chance our business is well located, we are attractive members of staff who are good and that's good. With all that and our mission and vision there has to be a plan. Where is it going but where is it taking us. Hope is not a strategy there has to be a plan.

“Our plan at the moment, and I don't think it is unique to just Blacker Hall. Our business was soldiering on quite nicely. We had grown every year for nineteen years and probably got quite good on the up. Good at meeting demand when something like horsegate happened, we would get another influx of new customers.

“But something happened in January, February, March and I suddenly felt our business came under pressure. The business was set up for growth so wages were on the up, lots of our costs increased, gross profit dropped by 2%, wages went up by 2%, our fixed costs like electric also went up. Packaging suppliers were telling us that they had done their very best to keep costs down but prices were going up 11%. We were getting pinched from all angles and I was worried.

“So we sat down and made a plan with my wife, a Scottish butcher's daughter. We wrote this plan and called in the 'Emerging Stronger Plan'. We needed to be sharper at running the business when times are a bit tougher. So we listed the things that are important to keeping the job going?

“We said that we had to be customer centric, we have to really look after customers. We have got to be a good employer, we have got to become tighter and more operationally efficient and of course we have to be compliant.

“We put some detail in there, lots of things that we are going to do. A basic and fundamental thing for anybody who works at Blacker Hall has to be an involvement with progressing the business on. That was where the numbers, the targets, the goals, the plan all became really really important.

“The thing was making the plan relevant. Each department has a manager but as part of their role they are tasked in detail with developing the business.

“If we don't keep our eye on the customers they can shut us down very quickly. Complacency was becoming engrained in our business.

“What our customers want from us are a great set of products and some exceptionally good service. Great product is becoming basic, as in non negotiable fundamental. If your product isn't great it is over. What is left for us is service, getting it right for our customer.

“You should try and be an employer of choice. It is great to do nice things for our staff, for our team and it is absolutely crucial that we do, but firstly we have to be able to afford to do it. For me the first thing about being an employer of choice is to get staffing budgets in line with sales.

“Wage percentages, staffing budgets is about one thing alone and that is profitability. If the wage cost of the sale is too high it is because we are not being productive enough.

“The flip side of that is having to work really hard to make our businesses a great place to work if we are going to attract the people who believe what we believe about business, about customer service, about selling our cattle directly from the farm to people who appreciate it and love it.

“We have a staff discount but once a month we have a day when staff can get further benefits on purchases. It is fundamental thing that says 'are the people who are selling our products to our customers, are they actual users of our product? If you go into an Apple shop, the people selling the product are not just believers, cut them in half and it says Apple through them.

“We looked hard at efficiency. This is not something the one person on their own can fix. We got everyone to record wastage, we hadn't done it in the past and basically it would highlight your errors. We will write them all down and evaluate them. We had three and a half per cent wastage on our first week of recording everything. On our sales that was the thick end of £4000. Times that by 52 weeks of the year and you have a problem.

“We turned everyone's attention on to wastage. Good things started to happen. It sounds so obvious but talking about the dozen bread rolls that are left at the end of the day and what would I do with them, is far more relevant to the people who work at Blacker Hall. That has far far more bearing on the GP than anything the Finance Director and I could discuss between us.

“We are trying to focus our guys that care on the things that have most impact on the business.

“With all these things we are pushing change all the time and I think it is fairly well accepted that most people in general find change awkward. True entrepreneurs probably see the opportunity, most people see the obstacles – the things that sit between us and the opportunity.

“One of the things that we have to manage is that process of change. Everything we do, any change we make is slightly uncomfortable. One the things about getting the right people on the bus, getting the right people on board doing the right things in the right places – you have to look at the capability to deal with the changes.

“I feel the industry is in a great place for opportunities. It is really clear to me that we can do things that our big competitors can't, they are about those stories in the shop. How we really really deliver for our customers and to do that we have to stay open minded, progressive, pushing forward and crucially attracting the right people.”

Attachments:

• EDC_GARTHWAITE_SFMTA_Nov_18.pptx

Attachments:

• ED_GARTHWAITE_ADDRESS_181118.MP3