Published by Farmers Guide, August 2009

Brad Farm Machinery celebrates
25 years in business

Pictured outside Brad’s Hadleigh depot are – Front row (l-r): Tony Reason, Paul Offord, Joan Canham, Stephen Morton and Roy Spratt. Back row: James Ketteringham, Dan Phillips, Steve Turner, Mark Butcher, Stewart Butcher and Alan Gooch.

BRAD Farm Machinery opened for business on Wednesday, August 1, 1984, with the four founding directors, Bernard (Nobby) Nobes, Roy Spratt, Anthony (Tony) Reason and David Morton – whose initials gave the company its name – setting up shop in an empty unit on Lady Lane Industrial Estate, Hadleigh, Suffolk.
While many businesses only get going after months, or even years, of painstaking planning, Brad was a different story. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity presented them with the opportunity to branch out on their own and support a product they believed in - but they had to move fast.
Its four owners had all been working for Eastern Counties Farmers (ECF), but had become disillusioned by a number of changes going on at the co-op. After years of successfully selling Deutz tractors, ECF had decided to switch to Renault and close its Hadleigh Road, Ipswich, depot – selling the site to Sainsbury’s for a new supermarket – and relocate to new premises on the other side of the town.
Roy Spratt, who had been a machinery salesman at ECF, told Farmers Guide that he had always got on well with the Deutz importer at the time, Watveare, and had spoken to them about his concerns.
“Watveare’s people knew nothing about ECF’s plans,” he said, “but they soon discovered they had a lot of support from ECF staff throughout the Eastern Counties.
“I was invited by Watveare to a meeting at Thetford where ECF staff from branches at Pakenham, Fakenham and Cambridge had also been asked along. It was made perfectly clear to us that if we wanted to set up as Deutz dealers in our own right, Watveare would give us every support. All we had to do was find a depot, and they would do the rest.
“That was the day that Brad Farm Machinery was conceived, along with two or three other East of England dealerships that are also still trading today.”
Nobby, Anthony and David agreed to join Roy in the new venture and, with the Hadleigh premises secured, the Brad team launched their business.
“Everything happened so quickly that we really didn’t have time to think about it,” Roy said. “We started with nothing but an empty building and a telephone line – and, of course, our Deutz territory with existing vehicles and a loyal customer base.”

Early success
Brad thrived in the early months picking up nearly all the servicing work for Deutz tractors and combines, but it also chalked up some remarkable sales successes.
“A couple of months after we started, Deutz announced a special deal on combines that would run from October to December,” Roy said. “During these three months we wrapped up seven combine deals which got us off to a marvellous start.”
Brad Farm Machinery has remained loyal to Deutz throughout the past 25 years. Roy admits there have been problems at times with the product – every manufacturer has issues from time to time – but these were fixed and new products came along.
“Today, with Deutz-Fahr, we have one of the strongest tractor ranges on the market and a wider range of customers are getting to know the benefits of the brand,” he said. “At long last these German-built tractors are getting the excellent reputation they deserve.”
Of course Brad is not a one-trick pony, as well as Deutz it has a range of franchises that have helped grow the business and make it the success it is today.
The firm sold Rabe equipment right from the beginning as it was also imported by Watveare, while Twose and Lely/Welger were also early signings on the franchise front.
In the early 1990s Zetor was added to the list: “There were a lot of smaller farmers in the area that came to us looking for secondhand Deutz tractors, but with many of them being exported out of the country, we couldn’t really help,” Roy said.
“The Zetor franchise allowed us to offer these buyers a new tractor for the price they would have been happy to pay for a used one.”
The next major addition to the Brad offering was Merlo, which came on board with its telehandler range in the mid-1990s.
“We sold Matbro products at one time, but when that came to an end we set our sights on Merlo as a replacement,” Roy said. “We spoke to Merlo UK and even went to see the parent company at a show at Bologna to make clear how much we wanted to sell the product.
“At the time Merlo had put a hold on expansion as it was building a new factory, but within a couple of years we were able to put the company’s sign on our building and start selling the brand.
“Looking back, it’s one of the best things we’ve ever done, with the Merlo franchise working extremely well for us.”
The same can be said for Suzuki, which is one of the most recent additions to Brad’s range of products.
“I must admit I hesitated about taking on an ATV brand,” Roy said. “I was convinced that the hard life that ATVs were subjected to would make them hard to keep going, and trade-ins would be impossible to shift.
“It turned out that the exact opposite was true, however. We very rarely have any problems with them, and when we did start taking back machines in part-exchange they would sell again almost immediately.”
Completing the product line-up is Knight Farm Machinery, which was added following its recent link-up with Rabe, Major, and Albutt and Cherry with their range of telehandler attachments.

Loyal staff
Brad is particularly proud of its long-serving staff, with five of the 11-strong team having been there for 20 years or more. Roy, who stood down as a director towards the end of 2006, remains at the firm as a sales rep, while Tony Reason is still workshop director.
The sales director is Paul Offord, who joined the company from ECF a year after it started, while Steven Morton, the son of David Morton is stores director. Joan Canham, who has also been with the firm for more than two decades, is a director and company secretary.
Completing the staff are storesmen Steve Turner and Dan Phillips; Merlo service engineer Mark Butcher; service engineers Stewart Butcher and James Ketteringham; and sales representative Alan Gooch.
Roy Spratt admits he is pleased with what the company has achieved.
“I’m proud and passionate about Brad Farm Machinery and the fact that it has been such a success,” he said. “We’ve been blessed that the franchises we’ve got have very good products and they all complement each other.
“And we have also had the loyal support of our customers. Some people didn’t give us six months when we started, but the support of the farming community has seen us through some difficult times in the past 25 years.”
Farming may have changed greatly, with many smaller farms disappearing and the average size of tractor increasing threefold, but the way Brad operates has remained constant.
“This is still a business where people matter,” Roy said. “We are selling to farmers that have chosen to come and deal with us.
“It all comes down to our relationship with the customer, and the most important thing we can bring to that relationship is trust.”