It wouldn’t be an understatement to suggest that since joining Roberts of Port Dinorwic just under a year ago, CEO Mark Rodgers has been the driving force behind a significant reversal in fortunes.
In May last year, the Welsh meat specialist was in undeniably bad shape. Struggling to find a buyer and facing challenging economic headwinds, management even considered temporarily shutting down production until a takeover deal could be agreed.
Luckily, Warwickshire-based firm GIL Investments saved the day a few months later, helping to secure all 70 jobs at its Caernarfon site.
And it was Rodgers to whom GIL Investments turned as their ideal candidate to mount a turnaround and, close to 10 months later, that decision appears fully justified.
With 40 years’ experience in the manufacturing sector, and having spent time at some of the industry’s biggest names, such as Branston and Hovis, Rodgers was well placed to identify what had led the historic, 100-year-old business to underperform.
Laying the foundations
GIL Investments’ input of £650,000 to help transform the business’s operations was, of course, essential — but its trump card, Rodgers, has been the driving force behind a return to profitability, and his strategy has been remarkably simple.
Speaking exclusively to Food Manufacture, Rodgers says he identified a series of key areas in urgent need of revamp.
According to Rodgers, the company’s underperformance stemmed from outdated processes, ‘old-fashioned’, labour-intensive production, weak planning and inefficient procurement.
Much like a doctor, he was able to assess and diagnose what was holding the manufacturer back, and set about righting the ship by introducing leaner operational processes, continuous improvement (CI), more efficient planning systems and longer-term supplier agreements.
“The standout things for me were poor efficiencies. Roberts’ strength was an extremely loyal workforce, but none of them had the experience of world-class manufacturing and CI to take them to the next level. They were doing things in an old-fashioned, very labour-intensive way,” Rodgers explained.
“I changed the volume profiles, procured much longer-term agreements with suppliers, introduced a proper planning and MRP (material requirements planning) model, and applied a CI specialist who has transformed efficiencies and best practice. Lean manufacturing is the only way forward, and the business didn’t have any of those principles.”
Another central facet of the turnaround, he says, was communication and effective leadership.
Rather than replacing the existing management team, GIL instead opted to invest in developing the personnel already in place.
Daily operational meetings, open communication and cross-department collaboration created a more accountable culture, says Rodgers, who described the leadership team as one of the cornerstones of the turnaround.
Rodgers continues: “The business really didn’t have any structured meetings around operations and joining up the departments. The first day I was in the business, I set up the operations meetings and what we call our morning prayer.
“Putting that strong disciplinary structure in, but allowing people to communicate in a positive and open environment, really opened Pandora’s box of opportunity.”
Loyalty and investment
Developing the established leadership has proved a crucial element in the business’s upturn in fortunes**, but Rodgers is keen to point out that none of this would have been possible without the rest of the Roberts workforce.
As a key employer throughout Gwynedd, the firm benefits from what Rodgers calls a highly loyal, locally based workforce with exceptionally long service.
Unlike many other manufacturers, he says, it relies entirely on permanent employees rather than agency staff, which in turn fosters strong engagement, reliability and a culture that supports continuous improvement.
It is this culture of loyalty and community that has made the workforce perhaps Roberts’ greatest competitive advantage.
“I think this is one of the only businesses in food manufacturing, certainly in the last 30 years, where we don’t employ any agency staff. Everybody lives locally, and the length of service proves that.
“Culturally the business is doing so well, and it’s the main reason why the shared engagement and welcome that I got when I came into the business has continued to happen.”
He adds: “They’re reliable people, they’re very highly skilled, they care deeply about what they’re doing, and it’s a joy working with them.”
But, of course, everything cannot be done by human hands alone — especially in the manufacturing sector — and investments made by GIL are steadily helping to improve the quality, speed and flexibility of Roberts’ output.
This includes hundreds of thousands of pounds of investment in new production technology, including around £300,000 spent on advanced meat tempering and portioning equipment, alongside refrigeration upgrades.
Rodgers adds that these investments will help reduce waste, improve product quality, shorten production times and enable the business to respond more rapidly to customer demand.
He continues: “We’re about to place orders on the latest state-of-the-art meat portioning machine, which can cut down to two millimetres. That will give us better yield control, better products for our customers and again take the element of manual labour out of our operation, giving us more adaptability.
“The final bit of investment this year is around our refrigeration plant. That will probably take us to around £600,000–£650,000 invested in the first year. It also makes us extremely adaptable, so if we get short-notice enquiries from customers, we can respond particularly quickly.”
The importance of procurement and long-term planning
As a manufacturer, strong procurement and planning have also become a vital pillar in the company’s turnaround plan – with Rodgers shifting away from the previous practice of ‘just-in-time’ purchasing towards longer-term fixed-price contracts with suppliers, helping to build stability and reliability.
This sound strategy may seem like a no-brainer, but at a time of mounting global economic uncertainty – and ongoing conflicts in Iran and Ukraine with seemingly no end in sight – it has proven crucial in helping to protect margins and reduce exposure to global supply chain disruption and inflation, as well as providing greater pricing stability for both Roberts and its customers.
“One of the things I did very quickly was change how we operate our procurement policy,” says Rodgers. “The previous owners kept a very tight rein because ‘just in time’ is everyone’s friend. I saw that as a loss-making opportunity. It made commercial sense to do longer-term contracts.
“We spoke to every meat supplier and reached agreements at three, six, eight and 12 months fixed price, so we protect our margins, but also protect our customers’ margins. That’s been game changing for us and means global events have less impact.”
Ultimately, Rodgers believes that planning ahead is the best way to future-proof the business, while also doubling down on its key philosophy and proposition – focusing on cost-effective meal solutions.
And in the face of challenging market conditions for all foodservice operators, the close customer relationships developed by Roberts, as well as the significant progress it has made in its operational efficiencies, will stand it in good stead going forward.
Essentially, Rodgers adds, the goal is to support customers through inflationary pressures while continuing to invest in Roberts’ long-term growth.
“We’ve spent a great deal of effort getting closer to our customers and understanding what their challenges are, what we can do to support them and what meal solutions we can create for them.
“We’ve got to stay innovative, we’ve got to stay ahead of the trend, and we’ve got to try and find ways of making products for our customers that are extremely cost effective within a sector where costs are spiralling out of control.”
And it certainly looks like Rodgers’ long-term plan is paying off, with the company’s recent six-month review described as being “such a long way forward from what [we’d] hoped when [we] went through the very first phase of the operation.”
Naturally, the next six months will continue to bring their own uncertainties, with the economic and political situation far from certain – but it seems that, in its small corner of north-west Wales, Roberts of Port Dinorwic is getting things very right.
