Scotherbs Supply Chain Development Drives New Sales

Scotherbs “ The progress Scotherbs has made towards its goals in such a short time is a remarkable Supply Chain achievement. Scottish Government and Scottish Enterprise are pleased that our support has Development Drives played a key part in developing new added value market opportunities and building a more New Sales resilient and sustainable supply chain.”

MDSC has helped Scotherbs to: Scotherbs is the only volume grower, packer and marketer of fresh herbs in Scotland, serving a  Develop new business with UK range of sectors across the UK. It employs multiple retailers worth an around 105 people at its site in Longforgan, near Dundee and farms approximately 250 acres in additional £2.25m sales per annum – the region. an increase of over 40%  Employ an additional 20 staff Following a period of sustained business  Develop a range of new, added value challenge, driven by volume losses through products, worth £0.5m in additional established retail customers for fresh, packaged sales, with a further £1.5m targeted herbs, Scotherbs embarked on a revised by 2016 strategy to drive sustainable volume and profit growth. The MDSC programme is a four year £1.6m project over 2013-2017, funded by Scottish  Refocus fresh, packaged herb supply Government and Scottish Enterprise, and is a towards a distinctive retailer base driven key priority within Scotland Food & Drink (SF&D) initially by Sainsbury’s and Waitrose, based partnership’s strategic action plan. Managed by on a premium quality and provenance Scottish Enterprise, it is designed to support positioning food and drink supply chains to fully exploit  Drive more value from fresh, packaged opportunities in the UK and international herb supply by launching a proprietary markets. brand  Drive increased revenue and profit through Stephen Baillie of Scottish Enterprise is the development of added value herb delighted at the success shown by Scotherbs to date with support from the programme. products targeted at processors serving adds value to other Scottish premium protein primarily the M&S, Waitrose and and vegetable products. Sainsbury’s supply chains, covering bulk supply and a variable size, sachet capability “This is a really good example of how the MDSC  Ensure that the Scotherbs raw material initiative can add value to the support that we supply chain is fully developed to meet the are able to give Scottish companies through our needs of the strategy Account Management Service,” explains Stephen Baillie. “Our Account Manager was MD of Scotherbs, Ronnie Leggett said able to help the company to develop its new “Scotherbs saw an opportunity to grow the product development capability, while the overall fresh herb category in Scotland and felt it MDSC team worked in parallel to help the was uniquely positioned to add value to Scottish company to develop its supply chain products in a healthy, sustainable and infrastructure and technical capability.” flavoursome way. This growth strategy takes Scotherbs in a new direction, requiring new capabilities, technologies, skills and supply chain infrastructure.

Key to the success of the strategy is the development of robust and effective supply chains both upstream and downstream, and this is where Scotherbs has received strong support from the Market Driven Supply Chains (MDSC) initiative funded by Scottish Government and Scottish Enterprise.” Through the development of a revised supply chain strategy with increased home-grown, With support from both MDSC and its Account Scottish provenance herbs, together with Manager at Scottish Enterprise, Scotherbs is deeper relationships with selected international working in collaboration with other growers for outwith the Scottish season, Ronnie manufacturers in the premium meat, fish and Leggett feels the Scotherbs’ supply chain is vegetable sectors to develop fresh herb based robust and fully capable of meeting the current infusions and marinades in sachet format. supply needs, with potential for further Scotherbs adds value to the herbs, which in turn extension to meet forward demand. The development of the capability to LEAN TeamGB, one of the MDSC team of manufacture and supply, fresh added-value, specialist partners, undertook the expert high care products to a range of processing feasibility / technical capability assessment to sectors, based on a premium Scottish introduce the new technology and products into provenance is also progressing well. Scotherbs, which has been key in generating the successful result. “By working closely with our customers, we are evolving new products designed to add value to The Scotherbs strategy is building traction, with the consumer experience, developing the fresh new business secured serving three depots for J herb supply chain in a sustainably profitable Sainsbury branded herbs across Scotland, manner, while collaborating with other Northern Ireland and N W England, as well as premium Scottish producers,” says Ronnie. securing fresh herbs supply under the propriety brand of “Robert Wilson’s Herb House” in all Waitrose Scottish stores. These initiatives have generated annualised, incremental revenues of some £1.5M.

There are also live business proposals in place with at least one additional retailer, with an estimated incremental £750K potential sales. These developments would constitute an increase in sales of over 40% with additionally, up to 20 new roles having been created across “This is what the MDSC initiative is about,” says Operations and New Product Development to Alan Stevenson of SAOS, the organisation in meet the demand. charge of delivering the MDSC project with a team of highly experienced supply chain New products from Scotherbs will begin specialists. “MDSC offers very practical support entering the market from October 2014, with and expertise in developing and delivering additional sales of £2m per annum, predicted by effective supply chains to get product to market, 2016. building partnerships and collaboration in supply chains, and solving problems anywhere in the chain that prevents it operating efficiently and effectively”.