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At the end of November, the British Potato Industry Event (BP2021) was held in Harrogate, Yorkshire, to bring together everyone in the industry from growers and buyers to machinery and technology manufacturers. Following last year’s COVID-19 event cancellations, there was eager anticipation to attend this one; a lot has happened over the past 2 years, with increasing challenges in our supply chain and new environmental targets coming in.
The great atmosphere at the event showed everyone was keen to reconnect and had a healthy appetite to see the latest in this fast-paced industry. There is always a lot going on in this sector so it was great to see familiar faces, meet new ones and continue to learn the upcoming improvements; from on-farm agronomy and machinery developments as well as packing, processing and packaging.
Some impressive kit was on display as the attendees entered the event, which included a SAM self-propelled sprayer, a range of Grimme products, the Ploeger four-row potato harvester (pictured below), a planter and harvester from Dewulf and Scanstone bed tillers, formers and soil prep machinery.
“At the root of all this support for the event, and anticipation for getting the doors open, is its track record as a potato-specific, business-focused show” explained Potato Review, who organised the National Potato Industry Awards on Wednesday 24th November at The Old Swan in Harrogate. The judges were made up of several industry experts and the categories for the awards included: agronomy, environmental, grower, innovation, machinery and marketing.
Our customers, Burgess Farm Produce, were shortlisted as a finalist in the Innovation category. Andrew Hayter, Head of Procurement at Burgess Farm Produce explains:
"From using KisanHub we have greater visibility for planning and managing stock across multiple sites. This has helped us to win and maintain contracts and provide a better quality of service to our customers."
Giles Barker, CEO & Co-Founder at KisanHub described: “We attended a few years back and again, this event didn’t fail to deliver. It was brilliant to nominate our customers Burgess Farm Produce for the Innovation category for the National Potato Industry Awards. They have been extremely dedicated to adopting new practises which will help their operations in the future, such as Paperless Load Passports (shown below) which is our digital trading system to remove the paper from the system - it’s simply not required anymore."
“We believe data should be only entered once and then be able moved around to the people that need to see it and can make more informed decisions which benefit margin and resources. In comparison to the monster spreadsheets they Supplier Groups are using where data has be re-entered several times and one mistake in a cell can mean catastrophe! It simply no longer has to be that way and we support these busy teams by providing a simple cloud-based solutions, where their data is always accessible any time, from anywhere.”
The exhibitors ranged from potato businesses across Europe, the latest in potato agronomy and machinery, to buyers and suppliers across the whole supply chain.
“It was a fantastic event, it was brilliant to meet new people, many of whom are KisanHub users. We look forward to having a stand next year to share the great software products we have been building for the past few years. Our product has moved on leaps and bounds so it was great to have conversations with various exhibitors who were in a similar space or could see the value in what we’re providing for Suppliers.” Jonny Kerley | Head of Product at KisanHub
“The Awards were the main highlight for me, being able to finally celebrate the industry’s achievements was brilliant and well hosted by comedian Rob Woodward! I really enjoyed networking with everyone at the event, everyone was really friendly and the speeches really made the event. It was such a well organised event so thanks again to the hardworking team who made this all happen. We look forward to seeing you all there in 2023!” Charlie Lacey | Business development at KisanHub
Georgie Knock in the Marketing team at KisanHub described: “This was my first time attending the event and I knew this sector is a friendly bunch, but I was bowled over as to how many approachable people attended, from growers to Buyers. Plus, a thanks to McCains, who were handing out hash browns, chips and even cakes with potato being one of the main ingredients! We had some fascinating and insightful conversations over the 2-day event and I would recommend it to anyone thinking of attending!”