James joined the Partnership in 1979 after doing a three year diploma course at Writtle Agricultural College and travelling the world for a year. Guy joined the partnership in 1981 after studying at Shuttleworth Agricultural College but soon became heavily involved with G.R.Greens, a cricket bat cleft-producing business bought by the partnership in the mid 80’s. Guy now successfully grows cricket bat willows and produces clefts which he exports all round the world. Guy now trades as Foskett Willows Ltd.
James Foskett Farms was formed in 2005 out of the partnership of H&J Foskett.
Through gradual expansion the land base now covers 2600 acres and is made up of owned and rented land within a 35 acre radius of Low Farm, mostly in the Deben Valley. Potatoes are the most important crop to the business with onions not far behind. Other crops include sugarbeet, carrots, cereals and organic vegetables.
Apart from James and his wife Belinda, who is company secretary, other members of staff include:
Marketing of the crops correctly is as important to the business as growing it. You have to be a marketeer, coming up with the right goods on the right day, with the right quality to suit the customer.
To help the business market their produce, it’s very important to have long term commitments with customers, to that end we have a 100% commitment to ESP (East Suffolk Produce) who market all our potatoes to various potato packers, but presently a high percentage go to Greenvale AP, Branston, Morrisons, QV Foods, Manor Fresh and Solanum.
We are members of G’s Growers who market our onions, beetroot and some organics. The conventional carrots go to Agrimarc on a partnership deal and the organic carrots to RBO. Many organics are marketed through the Box Schemes like Riverford and Abel & Cole and the green beans go through Wealmoor. Cereals go through the Fram Farmers harvest pools to get quick movement.
James Foskett Farms buys all the farm inputs through Fram Farmers, a farmer-owned buying cooperative based in Framlingham. Having over 1250 members, mostly in East Anglia but also round the country, they have huge buying power and are able to make sure their members are buying competitively-priced inputs – this has been essential in the development of the business.
James Foskett Farms Ltd is a well-established family Farming Business based in Bromeswell near Woodbridge in East Suffolk where it has been growing crops in the Deben Valley for over 60 years.
Soil types are mainly sands or sandy loams which enable us to produce high value vegetable crops with the help of irrigation which is extremely important in such a dry part of the country. The close proximity of the coast and the North Sea make sure spring frosts and high summer temperatures are not as severe in this area as further inland giving us a unique chance to grow early crops of good quality.
Potatoes have always been the backbone of the business and huge investment has gone into state of the art grading, storage, growing and harvesting of our crops to satisfy our customers and make sure we are taking full advantage of modern technology if we can. We presently grow 1000 acres.
Onions have also become a very important crop to James Foskett Farms and we now grow in excess of 425 acres which are all destined for the multiples. Under our control we have storage for 7500 tonnes of onions in very modern up-to-date 3.5 tonnne cold box storage and cold bulk stores, so we can keep the onions right up to May and the beginning of June before being marketed.
Organic vegetable production was started in 2009 after two years of land conversion and there will be 500 acres of Organic land available to us from Spring 2018. We have a good range of crops to give us a sensible rotation which is essential in organic and all other crop production. Crops include potatoes, onions, green beans, carrots, sweetcorn, butternut squash, beetroot and courgettes.