A family business prepared
for change
The Pilkington family has transformed its passion for simple grass-based dairying into a successful multi-site business. The key? A mindset for change.
“My parents have always been really forward-thinking, that’s what inspired me”
Husband and wife team Mark and Hilary Pilkington had established a successful mixed farming enterprise on their 100ha family farm in Devon, including a farm shop, 120-cow dairy and 12,000 free range laying hens.
“Having a handle on our figures helps us to be flexible and recognise what opportunities we can take”
But when their son Matt returned from Reading University in 2010, they realised something had to change.
“I look for people who have a similar mindset and will buy into our philosophy”
Matt explains: “When I came back to the family business, I had a clear idea about what I wanted to do.
“Dairy has always been my passion and, at 18, I travelled to New Zealand to learn more about grass-based systems. The scale of things over there blew my mind, and it got me asking why we couldn’t do something like that over here.
“However, where we were farming in Devon wasn’t great for milking cows. We were stuck on a steep hillside and we had difficulty finding the kind of land nearby that we needed in order to expand.”
Time for change
“My parents have always been really forward thinking and open to new ideas, and I think that’s what inspired me to follow my passion in the first place. It also meant, when I came home, that we were able to all sit down and discuss what we each wanted for the future of the business,” Matt explained.
“We began looking for farms closer to home, but in the end we found the right opportunity for us over 200 miles away in Northamptonshire.”
As a result, the family decided to rent out the farm in Devon and look to take on a tenanted farm elsewhere.
The trio took on a tenancy of the 207-hectare Chapel Farm on The Crown Estate’s Ashby St Ledgers estate in 2006 and began transforming it into a 300-cow grass-based dairy model.
Matt said: “We had a defined vision of what we wanted to achieve, and what we needed for the system to work. Our whole business model was based on efficiency and cost minimisation. We just wanted to keep it simple and make sure we did our jobs very well.”
Embracing opportunity
This core philosophy soon earned the Pilkingtons a solid reputation in the industry and, through this, more opportunities began to come their way.
“A real turning point for us was in 2015 when our neighbouring farm, also on the Ashby St Ledgers estate, came up for sale. Our plan had always been to retain the farm in Devon as an asset. However, when 200ha came up for sale next door at Bramleys Farm, it was an opportunity we couldn’t afford to pass up,” Matt said.
“The Crown Estate was keen to sell both Bramleys and Chapel Farms, however we still had six years of our tenancy remaining at Chapel Farm, and its 40ha woodland and lake raised its amenity value, meaning we couldn’t secure the funds to purchase it.
“Buying Bramleys Farm presented a viable alternative to us, and we were able to use our existing tenure on Chapel Farm to negotiate the purchase.
“Carter Jonas played an integral role in this and really worked with us to understand and support what we were trying to achieve as a family.”
An unexpected offer
“The new owners of Chapel Farm then approached us to see if we would be interested continuing to farm it as we were. This was totally unexpected,” he explained.
“It was a big step-change for us, and we had lengthy discussions about the best way to go about it.”
Despite the farms being next door to each other, the family recognised that they’d already developed a strong business model.
“The 300-cow model was something we knew inside out, and one were already sure we could make work, so keeping the two farms separate and becoming a multi-site system made the most sense for us.”
The decision proved to be the right one and the Pilkington family have since replicated this expansion, taking on another tenanted site based on the same model, this time in neighbouring Warwickshire.
The multi-site model
Matt explains that having clear business goals and targets has enabled the family to develop a resilient and profitable model based on three pillars: simplicity, consistency, and financial literacy.
“Simplicity is at the heart of the dairy and the main aim is to maximise quality milk, produced from grazed grass,” he said.
“Financial literacy is also key. We prepare detailed annual budgets for each farm and regularly monitor progress against these to make sure we have good knowledge of where we stand. Having a handle on our figures also allows us to be more flexible to change and understanding the impacts that certain situations may have on our business helps us recognise what opportunities we can seize.”
“That means we’ve got to drill down into the details of grass and cow management on each farm. We record and monitor as much as we can using software such as FarmWizard for herd information and AgriNet for grass, but we steer clear of over-complicating processes with additional technology that risks taking us away from our core aims.
Investing in people
Whilst a robust 300-cow model system is at the core of the Pilkingtons’ multi-site model, each unit is run and costed entirely separately, making upholding consistency across sites a key consideration.
This is a big change for the family, whose daily responsibilities have shifted from cow to people management.
“Managing a team of up to 12 people has been the biggest adjustment for me, and it’s clear that the success of our staff is key to the success of the business,” Matt said.
“When recruiting, I look for people who have a similar mindset and will buy into our philosophy. Then, when we’ve got good people, it’s important to invest in and develop them. We spend around £500 per employee per year on training and development, and we commit to one off-farm day per month to allow staff to attend training courses and seminars, or to visit other farms.
“Having the right people on board is imperative for both the shorter- and longer-term goals of our business. As my parents start thinking about taking a step back, I want to nurture the right talent within our business, to equip them to step up to the challenge.”
You can find Matt on Twitter @mattpilks1
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