Farm of the Week: Producer clocks in with IT system to control costs

He runs The Balloon Tree, a shop and farm which used to be Gate Helmsley Strawberries, a part-time business started by his agronomist dad.

Seven years ago, the family set out to build something bigger and named the venture after a horse chestnut, in the shape of a balloon, which was a local landmark at the time.

The tree died. The business boomed, from one which employed 15 people at a peak to one with a full-time staff of 30-40 and a summer workforce taking the total up to 75, when the harvests are coming on top of each other.

All this takes some organising and the business has a permanent half-time financial director, Diane Darley, who has a background in business accountancy and fell in with The Balloon Tree when she went back to college, to study horticulture at Askham Bryan, and was looking for work experience. The Machin parents, Jill and Digby, have stepped back from the business, although they remain directors.

Matthew's brother Will is working on an internet music business. Matthew, 32, is left as managing director of The Balloon Tree – about 65 acres, half rented, at Gate Helmsley, just before Stamford Bridge on the A166 between York and Bridlington, growing asparagus, strawberries, raspberries, brassicas, parsnips, carrots, blackberries, blueberries, plums, gooseberries and more. Some land is swapped with a neighbouring cereals farmer to assist them both with rotation.

A lot of the produce is sold on pick-your-own deals and most of the rest through the shop, which also buys in local meat, bread, cheeses and deli-style products. The farm alone might just still pay its way, with a much tighter focus, but the diversifications have made it more profitable and more interesting, says Mr Machin.

Two years ago, he decided they needed a time and attendance management system and Ms Darley went to IT specialists Mitrefinch, in York.

The result, for about 5,000, was a system based on two central clocking-in terminals and a clutch of hand-held PDAs. When anyone starts work, they punch a personal ID code into the terminals in the retail area or the farm kitchen, where everybody starts the day. When they move – from staff room to field, weeding to picking or packing, or shelf-stacking to waitressing – they check in and out of each job using the PDAs.

As the system was ironed out and became a matter of routine, it became possible to cost each product in terms of labour input as well as initial costs annd tractor time.

In the case of asparagus, the analysis led to investment in a harvesting machine – a motorised trolley on which the pickers lie, cutting as they go. It also led to a clearer idea of the number of spears which make a fair deal in a bunch.

In the case of leeks, the figures led to a reluctant decision that the labour of getting them out of the ground was simply too expensive and they are now bought in from another local grower with specialised harvesting tools. Similar analysis changed the pattern of strawberry and raspberry harvesting. They used to go over a patch twice, to get all the ripe ones at perfection. Now they do it once, having worked out that a bit of wastage is cheaper. The strawberry sums also made clear that 'table-top growing' – on raised platforms or slings – was well worth the initial investment, because of the easier picking.

In wage calculations, there is no guesswork or rounding-up in terms of hours put in on a particular task. Ten minutes late means ten minutes unpaid.

"It might sound hard, but more accuracy means more fairness, for both staff and customers," says Mr Machin. "Thirty percent of our costs are labour. The more we pin costs down, the more choice we have about how to distribute rewards. And the better we get at pricing our produce, the more customers we bring in."

The only way around the system is to get somebody to log in for you – a trick known in the business as 'buddy punching'. The answer to that is fingerprint readers. For the past month, the farm has been testing two based on 'multispectral sensors' which will read even wet and dirty hands.

They are on loan from Mitrefinch but would cost about 1,400 each.

If they work well, the system will be taken into the fields on hand-held scanners costing about 600 each.

Diane Darley says: "I would say our original investment in the time and management system has repaid already. The wages calculation, for example, used to take a couple of days. Now it is a matter of hours."

And the workers can get a print-out which shows them exactly how their pay-slip has been arrived at. Most of them do ask for it, of course.

If you add in the benefits from the cost analysis, it's a winner all round.

"The biometrics will make it all quicker and easier."

One application of the system is to calculate piece rates. The farm has to be sure of covering the cost of minimum wages – plus extras as specified by the Agricultural Wages Board.

With precise records, it is easy to work out what harvesting targets should be.

"On the strawberries and raspberries, it used to take me an hour a fortnight to work out who had picked what," says Mr Machin.

"Now I can call up the figures any time."

See www.theballoontree.co.uk, drive to YO41 1NB or call 01759 373023.

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