Published by Farmers Guide, January 2007.

Diversification is the key to Elveden's success

Elveden Estate, near Thetford, is remarkable in many ways, but perhaps its greatest claim to fame is the fact that it includes the largest single block of arable land in Britain.

According to Estate Director Michael Douglas, about 10,000 acres of the 22,000-acre estate is under the plough, although he is quick to point out that ploughing is relatively rare these days.

"The only time we need to plough is after onions to bury the trash," he told Farmers Guide, "although we do sub-soil before we plant vegetables to break up any pans.

"The soils are very light and sandy and lie over chalk," he added. "The only thing that varies is the depth of the sand, but it provides us with a fantastic growing medium for root vegetables."

Another benefit of the soil is that it is free draining.

"Even after weeks of rain, we can get back on to the land quickly," Mr Douglas added.

At one time the root of choice was sugar beet and Elveden Estates was the UK's biggest grower, but rhizomania brought that particular enterprise to an end in 1999. And despite the introduction of resistant varieties, Mr Douglas doesn't see the crop returning.

"It just doesn't stack up financially," he said.

What the estate does grow is potatoes, onions, carrots and parsnips and, as you might expect, they come out of the ground in significant quantities.

Annual potato production is running at about 25,000t from 1,200 acres. A wide range of varieties are grown to suit different markets - from salad potatoes to crisp manufacturing - but, remarkably, all are sold ex-harvest.

"We're unwilling storers of potatoes and try and sell everything off the field," Mr Douglas said. "We try and grow everything to programme and fill an early slot at Walkers crisp factory at Leicester; other potatoes go to McCain for chipping; and MBM takes our salad potatoes.

"It's important that we have a spread of customers, but the potato harvest is pressurised as we have to move anything from 500-600t of potatoes off the estate every day."

In complete contrast to the potato crop, Elveden has storage facilities for up to 17,000t of onions. Again grown on about 1,200 acres, the onion crop totals 20,000t, but the estate has decided to have greater control of how and where it is sold.

"In August this year we set up Elveden Produce Ltd, which has been designed to provide the link between our field-scale production and big-volume customers," Mr Douglas said. "Meeting the demands of the multiple-retailers and processors that require large volumes of produce with a guarantee of quality, reliability and provenance requires special skills and Elveden Produce's in-house team will be concentrating solely on meeting these requirements."

One of the requirements from the biggest buyers is year-round supply and Elveden has been working to ensure constant availability.

"We have been experimenting with early onion sets and those, in conjunction with our advanced storage facilities, have allowed us to get the supply gap down to just six weeks," Mr Douglas said. "For that short period we will be importing onions from selected growers in New Zealand."

Carrots and parsnips are grown on about 1,000 acres, with annual production totalling between 15-20,000t. Together, they make up the third root crop in a six-year rotation that alternates vegetables with winter cereals, although occasionally a green cover crop will be grown instead if the vegetable harvest has been particularly late.

Although cereals, particularly first wheats, are grown across the majority of the cropping land each year, the light soils mean that annual production is a modest 5,000t. Indeed the economics of the crop to the estate is reflected in the fact that the grain drill and combine will both celebrate their 10th birthdays next year.

"It would be fair to say that we try to run a low-cost grain operation," Mr Douglas said. "We have to run as cheaply as possible because the yields are so small, and I'm still not sure what we'll do when the combine has to be replaced."

Even when farming on such a large scale, machinery costs are still a major consideration and a high-powered crawler is shared with a neighbouring farm and brought in for sub-soiling duties.

A John Deere 8200 is operated to pull the plough, but the bulk of the work on the farm is carried out by a fleet of 16 McCormick's in the 150/160hp power range.

The farming operation at Elveden employs 25 full-time staff and a further 25 seasonal staff, mainly involved in keeping the estates irrigation systems operating from April to October each year.

Farm diversification

While Elveden Estate relies on agriculture for a great deal of its income, it hasn't been slow to diversify and has a number of novel businesses.

For many years it has been the preferred supplier of Christmas trees to the UK's towns and cities, in fact about 900 are supplied to locations from Cornwall to Scotland.

And, locally, it supplies about 5,000 smaller trees to households in Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. They are all sold during the Elveden Christmas Experience, which, during a three-week period, provides a fun day out for families to buy their tree and other Christmas gifts.

A more recent innovation is the estate's instant hedging business which grows and supplies mature hedges for any purpose. Available at up to 2m high and in transplantable lengths of up to 10m, seven species of hedge from green beech to yew are available, as well as a mixed hedge with a variety of native species.

Along with Elveden Produce and Elveden Foods - set up to produce and market locally-produced foodstuffs - all the businesses are treated as farm diversifications and are answerable to the directors of Elveden Farms Ltd and the owner of the estate, Lord Iveagh, who is closely involved in the day-to-day running of the business.

"We have a huge estate asset to manage and improve and have to constantly work to take it forward," Lord Iveagh told Farmers Guide. "Maintaining the estate, and our conservation work in particular, needs a constant supply of cash and all the working parts of the estate have to contribute to that."

"Our breadth of enterprises means that we are, to an extent, insulated from market conditions. It is important that we don't have all our eggs in one basket, or even two baskets."

Central to the estate's development is a commitment to bringing in experienced people to manage the new enterprises.

"It's important that we bring in key mangers from outside when necessary," Lord Iveagh said. "We need to find exceptional people to push the business forward and it's equally important that the farm managers are allowed to focus on the farm."

An excellent example of this is Elveden's new Courtyard development, which is the culmination of almost two years' work by Head of Retail Robert Tate.

Mr Tate, who has many years' experience in high-end retailing and food hall development, has spent that time working on business plans and building the offering for a brand new farm shop and café restaurant that has been trading for the past month.

Based in converted estate buildings, the shop stocks about 3,500 food lines, all of which have been sourced from, or have strong links with, the Elveden Estate or the Eastern Counties.

Game - including hare, duck, three species of deer, rabbit, partridge and pheasant - is just the start of the offering. Beef, lamb and pork, including meat from Lady Iveagh's Berkshire pigs, is also available, as well as locally grown fruit and vegetables.

"We have a fantastic amount of food on tap," Mr Tate told Farmers Guide. "Just by talking to people on the estate, we found sources of sloes, chestnuts, four different honeys, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries and apples.

"These had not been documented before and may just be available in small quantities, but they are just the types of local foods that we want to sell from the shop."

The shop also sells about 80 Elveden-branded products that are made using local ingredients or are based on recipes from the Iveagh's household.

"All of them have been inspired by a link to the estate and they will also be sold through selected quality food outlets from early next year," Mr Tate said.

The shop and restaurant, which also opens for fine dining on Friday and Saturday evening, currently takes up one side of the courtyard, which used to house the estate's carpentry and works departments. Plans are well advanced to convert the other three sides into retail and food outlets for next spring.

"We will have a library/museum where people can find out more about the estate, gift shops, an aromatherapy outlet and a barbeque and ice-cream parlour," Mr Tate said.

"We are putting together a valuable resource for the local community and the large number of tourists that visit this area each year."

The project has had £1 million spent on it to date, although the use of craftsmen from the estate has allowed this money to go a long way with absolutely no compromise in quality.

"The carpenters and other trades employed by the estate have been a valuable resource," Mr Tate said. "They work on all the properties at Elveden, from the grandest house to the smallest cottage, and they take great pride in their work.

"Every enterprise on the estate has to pay its way and there is a plan in place to pay back the investment that has been made in the courtyard, but this is a medium- to long-term project.

"It helps support the local community by employing 25 staff and is designed to be a catalyst for other activities, as well as providing a valuable showcase for the estate and its produce.

"We have already been able to show our support for the East of England Development Agency's new food and drink initiative by hosting its launch during a lunch at the Courtyard Restaurant."

Historical quirk

The current owner of the Elveden Estate is Arthur Edward Rory Guinness, the Fourth Earl of Iveagh, who inherited the estate and the title in 1992. The estate has, however, been in the family's hands since Edward Cecil Guinness (who became the First Earl of Iveagh in 1919), bought it from the trustees of the late Maharaja Duleep Singh in 1894.

The first Earl was Chief Executive of the family's brewing business in Dublin and was responsible for floating the company on the stock exchange, thereby making his fortune.

At the turn of the 20th Century, Elveden was a renowned shooting estate and it wasn't until the time of the Second Earl of Iveagh that agriculture, as we would recognise it today, began on the land.

"Elveden is unique in that it has always been farmed in-hand," Lord Iveagh told Farmers Guide. "It's a bit of a historical quirk, but it all started in the late 1920s when my great grandfather began to invest in improving the land.

"While the estate was a great shooting place, he recognised that it was an anachronism. It also helped that he had a scientific bent and was keen to find out just what the land was capable of."

Another major boost to the area of land under cultivation at Elveden came during World War II when the War Ministry encouraged the estate to put more acres under the plough.

Today the estate is virtually the same size as it was when it was bought more than 112 years ago, apart from the land which now sites the air base at Lakenheath which was compulsorily purchased by the War Ministry during World War II.

The 22,000 acres today includes 10,000 acres that is cultivated, about 3,500 acres of forest and 3,500 acres of heathland, much of it included in the Breckland SSSI and the home to several rare species of birds including the stone curlew.

The remainder of the estate is taken up by roads, tracks, set-aside and 300 or so properties.