Recent highlights for Tom Manley include receiving a lifetime achievement award from the Organic Council of Ontario and touring a Walmart warehouse.
The award was a bit embarrassing, he says, but the Walmart tour was excellent.
“It was a great opportunity to observe things and ask a lot of questions,” says Manley, founder and president of Homestead Organics.
“We had those ‘oh you do it that way, but we do it this way’ conversations that for someone like me is just fascinating: what forklifts they use, how they do their packing and picking, and optimizing (warehouse) space.”
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Manley, owner of Eastern Canada’s largest organic feed and grain processing company, was honoured by the award, but he also knows many of those who honoured him view Walmart as the evil empire.
“Walmart has a reputation for squeezing – I won’t use the other word – its suppliers,” says Manley.
“So I’d tell anyone who goes into a relationship with Walmart, be it supplying organic food or furniture, they’d better be careful. But it’s also driven down the cost of logistics. And anything that improves efficiency and drives down costs, as long as you’re not overly squeezing suppliers or externalizing costs on government or the environment, is a good thing.”
Manley firmly believes organic food is healthier, and conventional farming is bad for the environment and the long-term prospects of farm families.
That’s what fuels his desire to seek out successful companies of all stripes that might have something to teach him. The fact that organic accounts for two percent of Canadian food sales and tops the $2 billion mark doesn’t begin to satisfy him.
“The organic sector has to get its costs down and its efficiencies up so that organic food is affordable and attractive for a broader section of the population,” he says. “Otherwise, we’ll stay at two percent or less of the food system, and that’s not what we want. We want 100 percent.”
This is why Homestead Organics is implementing CRM system software, which stands for contact relationship management.
It provides a customer’s complete file with a few clicks of a mouse. Not just sales and payment history, but the whole deal: e-mails, reports on problems and notes from Homestead sales representatives
It is a move into corporate management not expected in a company the size of Homestead, with its 13 employees and $5 million in annual sales. Small operations usually take pride in their non-corporate, personal approach.
Manley expects his customers will still deal with the same sales rep every time.
But his goal is to capture data and analyze it to allow him to minimize inventory, reduce waste, streamline ordering and deliveries and market more efficiently.
His latest project, Organic Central, aims to ally his company with smaller organic food companies.
Having outgrown the old feed mill that he bought when he started Homestead in 1997, Manley is trying to buy a shuttered 200,000 sq. foot former textile mill on a busy highway near Cornwall, Ont. It’s far bigger than he needs, but Manley wants to create a cluster of businesses focused on organic food processing and distribution.
It makes business sense. There are juicy economies of scale for Homestead and its tenants by sharing forklifts, waste processing systems and specialists in information technology and marketing.
It will also kick up cross-selling and value-chain opportunities by putting complementary businesses under one roof, such as a flour mill, oilseed crusher, vegetable processor and farm supply centre.
But what really excites Manley is having a bunch of go-getter, innovative entrepreneurs as neighbours.
“That’s why I say receiving a lifetime achievement award was not a lot of work,” he says. “In the organic sector, we feed off each other’s ideas, energy and enthusiasm.”
Of course, no sector has a monopoly on innovation, and lots of conventional farmers collaborate and share ideas. But why not cast a wider net? Businesses succeed by effectively managing capital, people, resources and finances. Manley says you can learn something from any successful operation.
“There are so many things which are alike, it’s amazing,” he says.
“It’s all the same. I don’t care what kind of widgets you’re making.”
Whether it’s Walmart or a successful local entrepreneur, there are plenty of sources for good business ideas. But you’ll never find them if you don’t look.
Archived columns from this series can be found at www.fcc-fac.ca/learning.
Farm Credit Canada enables business management skill development through resources such as this column, and information and learning events available across Canada.
