– Is it past it’s best before date?
Firstly, let me get this out there – I do not hate Cereals.
Resent it – Yes. Hate it – No.
Yes, I know my social media is all “Should I go to it, it’s awful, blah, blah”
That’s purely because as someone who was forced to attend it ,come rain or shine for 18 years, with various firms, I have tarred it with a great big brush of “Booo, it’s rubbish!”
This is, of course very churlish of me but I know that there are many, many people who share my view from the merchanting side of the industry and thus it makes for an entertaining back and forth in exchanges.
This included a poll I ran on “X” asking if I should go or not – 71% of people said “No”
The irony is , that once I moved out of the grain trade, I promised myself I’d never go to Cereals again.
And now here I am , running my own business and going to it is a necessity! Oh, the irony!!
That being said, I didn’t decide to go until about 10pm on Monday night because I just wasn’t sure it would be worth it.
But something that stuck in my mind was a comment made by the great Charles Anyan on my poll.
Charles Anyan on X
“It’s not the beast it once was from a business point of view, however it’s still an important day to catch up with friends, which is important in itself.”
Was I looking at it all wrong?
Instead of treating it as a much needed Business Development opportunity should I just treat it as a social event? But… that would mean… I MIGHT ENJOY IT!!!
With those words bouncing around my head I made my way to Baldock.
Which gives me my first gripe – why is Cereals always at least 2 hours to get to from Norfolk – Obviously, I’m aware it takes an hour to get out of Norfolk any way but come on – it does feel like we are overdue a visit from the organisers of Cereals to cast their peepers over the likes of Diss or Dereham.
There are other places other than Lincolnshire or the Cambs/Herts border.
We already have to traipse over to the Midlands too many times a year now for whatever exhibition has decided to move and then failed to fill the massive halls – CropTec anyone!? No? I’m not saying it was cavernous but at one point I heard my own thoughts echo back to me ” This is poo, this is poo , this is …”
Anyway, I digress but if you made it this far…
I just about managed to prevent myself from driving into the entrance to the 8th wonder of the world that is Duxford Imperial War Museum, where I would have quite happily spent 5 hours swooning over their Liberator and Super Fortress because like all men – I am in fact still a 12 year old boy!
I eventually arrived at Newnham Farm.
Getting onto the ground was easy, driving through the narrow roads of Bygrave was not.
It was around 10:30 and I was greeted with row upon row of Discos, Rangers, Hilux’s , a couple of Grenadiers all in various shades of Grey or Black.
It may have been the time of my arrival but where were the queues of confused farming gentry trying to register to get in, getting all flustered and shouting at the assistants?
Instead, it was empty.
Those of you who recall my comment about Schoffel wearing, mullet bearing types at CropTec would be delighted to hear that they were moving around in their herds across the event.
The Greater Spotted Harpers could be picked out by their Rugby shirts with upturned collars, long hair and their familiar call of “Haaaaaarpppper”
The Lesser Spotted Agrics of Cirencester were there too but in smaller numbers.
Easily spooked you could spot their Schoffel gilets, Pampeano belts and Le Chameau wellies as they sought shelter at Savills.
Anyway, after a couple of minutes student spotting I was in the throngs of the KWS plots.
It was busy but not packed.
Was it the weather? The forecast was wet and changeable.
Was it the absence of some particular exhibitors? – scanning through the list I’d picked out 30 I would like to see but to be honest – that was a stretch!
For those of you wondering, I did get round most of the firms I wanted to see, and if I had more time then it would have been do-able but I wanted to stop in and attend one of the talks.
“Getting The Next Generation into Agriculture.“
Chaired by Guy Moreton from More People – we can all learn from our peers, even the opposition…apparently.
I wanted to see what bright ideas a group of 50 – 60 year old men, in their branded gilets, had to say to encourage the youth of today into our multi faceted industry – as did the other 25 or so people in the tent.
As if there’s one thing Gen Z loves, it’s being told how good things are by Gen X.
The first person to speak was Henry Welham, who was quite literally on his first day as Senior Agriculture Manager with British Sugar.
He spoke well about how not coming from a farming or Ag background hasn’t been a barrier to his progression.
Indeed, in 3 career moves he’s fallen into a very well paid job which will keep him in branded Schoffels for as long as he needs.
Then over to Adam White, Head of Agriculture for Barclays, Stephen Jacob the CEO of TIAH and James Little , the recently appointed Head of Agriculture of British Sugar.
Look, these aren’t bad people to get to an event, in a tent, in Baldock, on a wet day…but…….Christ!!!
If all we can muster to try and engage with young people is a bunch of white blokes who look like they’ve come straight from the 18th hole at Letchworth Golf Club then we are really not delivering the message.
The irony is not more than 40 ft away was Tom Turner .
He has 30,000 followers on TikTok and is a brilliant, young mind in the industry. He spans so many sectors and appeals to those we need to attract. Look at his videos to see what I mean.
The other easy target would have been Sandy Kirkpatrick , co host of the Farmers Weekly podcast and the Marketing Manager for the Cereals Event itself – 51k followers on TikTok
He was there yesterday too but instead, lets get some old mates and recent appointments in rather than address the issue.
Which is the industry works you hard, gives little training, expects too much, pays badly, is run by misogynists – oh wait, sorry – I thought I was talking about the Reform Party – the opening 4 still apply though.
However, it is getting much better.
I have my “own ideas” about what we need to do but that’s for another post…..
I left and proceeded to fill in my bingo card, but the layout was just very random – the site, not my bingo card.
If your business hadn’t paid the premium to get into the Agronomy zone then it was a complete arse ache to find a particular firm.
“That’s what the map is for!” however there should be a certain amount of intuition that can be used, I shouldn’t have to flick back and forth to figure out where Timac are!
And that for me is the thing that let the show down – the placement of some of the stands felt a little haphazard.
The NFU and Savills were where you thought they’d be but the likes of Omya were stuck in some sort of hinterland near Sprays and Sprayers.
As the rain fell and the crowds suddenly found themselves taking cover in small gazebos being forced to make small talk with ball-bearing manufacturers until the showers moved on I thought about my day.
I had some great conversations, talked about the excellent article about the YFC and the dreadful fallout over it, discussed that British Sugar are now going to let growers buy and sell seed direct or via third party suppliers, spoke about an outgoing senior management figure from a Cambridgeshire based storage company and managed to get some dog leads from KWS
It had been a chance to catch up with people and to engage with those that perhaps I wouldn’t normally see.
However, with more firms doing their own trials days across the country – you don’t need to travel far to have a very similar experience.
You might not get to talk about ballbearings but you will have people from fert manufacturers , crop input distributors who will offer you a coffee and a free pen.
Cereals understands its’ audience.
It has learnt that more exhibitors is not necessarily better but there was a still a slight vibe of “meh” to the show.
Have we just grown tired of going to lots of similar shows at the same time and seeing the same things?
With Groundswell around the corner, has that stolen some of the crowd from Cereals – at £100 vs £18 a ticket – unlikely.
FYI , I definitely won’t be going to that unless they feel like lobbing me a press pass!!
Does Cereals need to be an annual event? Could it / Would it be better received if it was now every other year?
I think it might be the case, obviously, the organisers won’t want that because it’s a slippery slope from every other year to simply not existing anymore. Which would be a shame.
Cereals is important. Charles is right.
Not for the business. You can do that anywhere.
It’s still an occasion.
It’s ok to enjoy going if you’re a farmer, student or exhibitor.
And it’s ok to enjoy moaning about it and still go.
It’s what makes us unique as an industry. We moan like sin about something but we all know we’re going to do it anyway.
See you in 2025. Maybe.
Cereals Rating 6.5 out of 10.
Thanks for reading.
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