Norfolk grower B & C Farming is using a corporate management structure to manage generational succession while maintaining continuity across its potato contracts and wider cropping business.

The company contract farms more than 2,200ha in North East Norfolk, producing ware and seed potatoes alongside cereals, sugar beet and other crops. Its processing potatoes go to McCain and Birds Eye through Greenvale, while seed potatoes are supplied to Greenvale and McCain.

Sophie Bambridge (pictured), Business Manager and a director of GB Potatoes, now runs the business day-to-day alongside Farm Manager Chris Day as her father, Tony Bambridge, steps back from operational management.

“We’re not a traditional family farm but we are a farming business with family members holding shares and working within the company,” Sophie Bambridge said. “That structure gives the business a very different dynamic – a much more corporate one.”

B & C Farming has nine contract farming agreements and multiple shareholders, with cropping plans, machinery investment and budgets handled through a formal board structure.

“It takes the emotion out of decision making,” Bambridge said. “With other shareholders in the business and a non-executive chairman, there are no ‘favours’; everything is decided on merit.”

The transition has been underway for around a decade, with Tony Bambridge gradually relinquishing day-to-day control while remaining available to advise the management team.

For the potato side of the business, the model is closely tied to contracted production and established customers.

“We are growing a known crop for a known market for a known customer. We’re not speculating but building strong relationships with a number of key customers. We feel that that gives the best returns overall.”

Bambridge also serves as Chair of CUPGRA and has been a director of GB Potatoes since its inception.

“I firmly believe that by working together, we can leverage greater value and benefit for the potato industry as a whole, particularly for growers,” she said.

The company’s succession model highlights a broader issue for larger potato businesses: how to transfer management responsibility without losing commercial focus, technical oversight or continuity with processors and packers.