Mooo-ve Over: Business Strategy.
Stand still and silently watch the world go by – and it will. A wonderful thing to do but ill advised for businesses as, to be able to stand on your own two feet, business needs to keep moving. By complementing the core, the `risk’ that all business is prone to is lessened, as value is added to services or products and commercial value, whether urban or rural, is extended.
Market, a fundamental of business language, is as basic to a farm, and farms, just like any business, are not immune from shifts in market economies. Therefore, when looking amongst the number of options a farm might choose as an element of growth strategy, we couldn’t resist the offerings of one farm in particular.
Whilst Jeremy and Louise Holmes aren’t the only farm to complement their core dairy business via a food product, the appeal of their model is that they have diversified their core business to make full use of the combination of people skills and farm assets. The result being a product that has sufficient variety to react to changing times and, as we always promote, the Holmes’ assert the value of their business through their management and in maintaining a quality product. Delph House Farms’ milk is so fresh that it’s astonishing a `Moo’ isn’t emitted from the ice-cream cartons, or from the teas and coffees served in the ice-cream parlour. This is a further example of diversifying a core business.
With shifts happening in market places, diversifying opportunities for business to remain thriving isn’t unusual; the key to success is to look for pockets of growth and areas of resistance with an open mind. By producing a product locally, the local community benefits, not only in terms of employment but in terms of sourcing ingredients not available, as for the Holmes, on their farm. This farm remains fundamental to the local identity and is further identifying the area and its brand when its products are available to local shops and restaurants, whilst the brand, and its associated ‘place’, becomes apparent to a wider audience through take-home packs via a National supermarket. Sustainable, but not parochial, local food production.
Farms, as businesses, need competent managers, whilst the debate about entrepreneurial skills being taught or being inherent continues the ice-cream flavours created at `Yummy Yorkshire’ seem both an embodiment of the business model of both diversifying, and diversification, with a topping of entrepreneur spirit; as with the creation of many of the best businesses and food, as much an art as a science. Anyone who eats premium ice-cream will know, its’ production needn’t be limited to the Summer season, as it’s a product for many occasions. Facebook has an `I love Ice Cream’ page with over 47,000 members. When word gets out about Yummy Yorkshire brand, the number is sure to rise.
(Image credit: Robert S Donovan Article credit: Copyright SUF)
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