Published by Farmers Guide, February 2010

Norfolk’s muck baron moves with the times

Massey Ferguson 6499s and Agri-Hire muckspreaders – supplied in red to match the tractors – currently make up half the Paul Gunther fleet.

THERE’S no doubt that agricultural contracting is a difficult business. Fickle customers and competitors trying to undercut prices mean that many would-be contractors give the game up as a bad job, but there are also a number of long-standing, successful businesses.
Paul Gunther Contracting definitely falls firmly into the second category. The company, which handles all the muck from Bernard Matthews’ Norfolk turkey sheds, can be traced back to the early 1970s and now counts more than 25% of the county’s farmers among its customers.
With 25 employees, a fleet of 12 muckspreaders at work 10 months of the year and half a dozen HGVs hauling turkey muck year-round, the business is one of the UK’s biggest muck supply and spreading operations.
But there’s more to Paul Gunther Contracting than just muck. A grass, wholecrop and maize silaging operation; round baling (and wrapping); and the production of conventional hay bales for the equestrian sector help round out the business’ offering. And as if that’s not enough, there’s the PLG Farm Supplies shop that has been operating for 20 years and a beef enterprise that has been finishing up to 500 cattle in each of the past five years.
Paul Gunther began working for himself in 1966 when he left Norfolk County Council, where he had trained as a groundsman, to set up a groundscare business with another former council employee. The partnership lasted for 18 months before the pair went their separate ways, but by that time Mr Gunther had already decided where his future lay.
“My grandfather farmed at Caister-on-Sea and I had always wanted to be a farmer,” he told Farmers Guide. “Getting a farm of my own didn’t appear very likely, but moving into agricultural contracting seemed to be the next best thing.”
In the early 1970s a muckspreading service was added to the landscaping work Paul Gunther’s business had been concentrating on.
“At first I was using Massey Ferguson 135s with front loaders and wheel-drive, rear-discharge muckspreaders,” he said. “Then there was spell when we used side discharge Howard Rotospreaders, before moving to rear-discharge Kidd Fymax spreaders.
“I also continued with landscaping projects at this time – indeed we still occasionally turn our hand to this kind of work today – and was involved in the building of many of Norfolk’s golf courses in the 1980s and 90s.”
A major milestone for the business came in 1976 when Paul Gunther Contracting was first awarded the contract to muck out the Bernard Matthews turkey sites.
“This remains the core of the business today,” Mr Gunther said. “Operating to a tight schedule, we clear out the sheds with Weidemann compact loaders and have to take the muck off the sites immediately using our fleet of eight-wheelers, delivering it to farms ready for spreading.”
With large volumes of muck to deal with, Mr Gunther has tried most makes of muckspreader in his quest to find the ideal machine for the job.
“After Kidd, we moved to Bonhill machines, and then persuaded Bunning to build us the first six 12t Highlander spreaders in the mid 1980s,” he said.
ECE was next to win the Paul Gunther Contracting business, indeed there are still six of the company’s spreaders on the fleet today, while the most recent spreaders have come from Agri-Hire.
“The machines from Agri-Hire have really impressed us,” Mr Gunther said. “We chose them because of their spinning decks and the wider spread they offered, but they’ve more than proved they’re up to the job.”
When it comes to tractors to pull the spreaders, the business had early experience with Ford 4000 and 5000 models, and then Leyland, before settling into a fleet almost exclusively made up of Renault and then Claas tractors until about two years ago.
“When I took on Paul Clarke to manage the contracting business he persuaded me to take a look at Massey Ferguson. We bought our first three MF6499 models from local dealer Randell NFM in 2008 and added another three in 2009,” Mr Gunther said. “Rated at 190hp, the tractors’ engine management system provides a maximum of 230hp when it’s needed.”
Financed over three years, the tractors all have extended warranties to protect the business’ investment should any issues arise during that time. Although this means that they can’t be serviced by Paul Gunther Contracting’s own fitters, both Mr Gunther and Mr Clarke are satisfied that this is an acceptable price to pay for the extra peace of mind the warranty provides.
“Pulling Agri-Hire spreaders painted red to match the tractors, the MF6499s look the part on the road and deliver the performance we need in the field,” Mr Gunther said.

Contracting manager
Paul Clarke joined the business in the middle of 2007 to take over from Frank Gillett, who had been with business for 36 years before retiring through ill health.
“In the late 1980s the business reached a size where it needed someone based in the office to keep an eye on everything,” Mr Gunther said. “Frank knew all our customers and was the ideal man for the job. Paul had worked for another Norfolk contractor for 11 years before he joined the business, so he knows the area and is getting to know our customers too.”
Paul Clarke is now the first point of contact for most customers, answering the ’phone from the office where he oversees the whole operation.
“The Bernard Matthews contract remains the priority, and we always have an up-to-date schedule showing which sheds are to be cleared and when,” he said. “We’re always working about six to eight months ahead selling muck onto farms so that when we clear out a specific shed, we have local customers ready to accept the muck.
“Using eight-wheelers means we can get onto fields in all weathers to tip the muck into heaps, then we’ll go back and spread it when the farmer’s ready.
“When Paul Gunther started the business the average farm, took about 250t/year; as farms have grown in size, however, this has increased to 1,000t, although one or two take up to 10 times that amount.”

NVZs have not had too much of an effect on the business. A move into spreading compost has taken up the slack in the closed period, although the firm still has some spare capacity to take on more customers looking for this service. The need for more accurate record keeping has also meant a change in operating practices.
“Because we sell the muck to farmers, we have always kept accurate records and used muck analysis so our customers knew exactly what was going on the land,” Mr Clarke said. “The introduction of NVZs has meant that we have taken that one step further by using GPS technology so that application maps can be produced to show compliance.
“All our tractors are now fitted with GPS systems that we use to ensure accurate passes in the field and to record what muck goes where. All our loaders use weigh cells so we know how much muck is going into the spreaders.”
Two JCB loading shovels, a 416 and a 434, are the front-line spreader-filling machines. Fitted with custom-built buckets with a capacity of 8t, these can fill a spreader in less than 40 seconds.
“There’s a considerable investment in machinery involved in the business, so we like to keep it all hard at work,” Mr Clarke said.

Forage services
The silaging set-up at Paul Gunther Contracting is headed up by a Claas 960 self-propelled forager. It is kept on the move by a 6m Lely Splendimo front- and rear-mounted mower combination, two Lely Hibiscus rakes and three 16t Richard Western silage trailers.
Round baling, meanwhile, is carried out using a Welger baler with a home-built, trailer-mounted McHale wrapper that allows non-stop baling and wrapping.
“We’re always looking for more work for all our services, although existing customers will always come first,” Mr Clarke said. “Quite often the capacity of the kit we use means we can fit new work into our existing route without inconveniencing existing clients.”
Now 65-years-old, Mr Gunther has no plans to retire, although he has passed more of the day-to-day work at the contracting business to Mr Clarke since having triple heart bypass surgery in the middle of 2009. His wife Linda, who is a partner in the business, looks after the invoicing and other paperwork, while daughter Lizzie, and her husband Sean, look after PLG Farm Supplies.
He has achieved his ambition of farming in his own right, moving to the firms’ base at Fir Covert Farm, near Felthorpe, West of Norwich, with its 10ha of grassland, in the early 1980s. He also rents a significant amount of land for his beef herd, which is based on Simmental bloodlines, and runs the small pedigree Fircovert herd of Simmental cattle, which he has also shown successfully in the past.
“I’ve always maintained that a business needs a niche to be successful and for us that is muckspreading,” Mr Gunther said. “We’re well known all over Norfolk, North Suffolk and South Lincolnshire and that’s thanks to the good reputation we have built over the years for the service we provide.”