99. How to cash out without selling out | Guy Singh-Watson
James Reed: all about business
James Reid interviews Guy Singh-Watson, founder of Riverford Organic Farmers, about transforming a small family farm into a £120 million employee-owned business. Singh-Watson
Key takeaways
- Guy Singh-Watson transitioned Riverford to full employee ownership in 2018 after nearly two decades of planning, ensuring profits are shared evenly among 1,200 co-owners rather than external shareholders.
- During the pandemic, Riverford's sales tripled as customers cooked at home; employee owners voluntarily shifted roles (e.g., sales staff became van drivers) and each received approximately £3,000 after-tax profit shares.
Main topics
- Employee ownership and profit-sharing models
- Leadership evolution and emotional intelligence
Notable quotes
"If you're afraid of change, you're in trouble."
Conclusion
The episode offers a compelling blueprint for values-driven entrepreneurship, demonstrating how employee ownership, radical
Transcript preview
Speaker 2 (0:00) Welcome to All About Business with me, James Reid, the podcast that covers everything about business, management, and leadership. Every episode, I sit down with different guests who have bootstrapped companies, masterminded investment models, or built a business empire. They're leaders in their field, and they're here to give you top insights and actionable advice so that you can apply their ideas Speaker 1 (0:22) to your own career or business venture. Speaker 2 (0:27) Can you build a successful business without compromising the people and principles that helped you build it? Today on All About Business, I'm joined by Guy Singh-Watson, founder of Riverford Organic Farmers, who turned three acres of organic vegetables in Devon into one of Britain's best-known organic food businesses. In this episode, we discuss why cheap food isn't really cheap, what employee ownership can teach us about sharing the rewards of success, and the leadership lessons Guy has learned from four decades of building Riverford. Speaker 2 (1:04) Well, today on All About Business, I'm really delighted to welcome Guy Singh-Watson to the studio. Guy, you're a self-declared veg nerd, which is a category I haven't come across before, but I love. And you are the founder of Riverford Organic Farmers, as I understand it. That's me. That's a fabulous business that I think will be familiar to many of our listeners. But tell me a little bit, Guy, to start off about Riverford as it is today. Speaker 1 (1:30) Okay, well, I'm a farmer's son. My father was a tenant farmer, and after a brief career as a management consultant in the mid-'80s, I came back and started growing organic vegetables on the farm in 1986, 7, and 40 years later, that was just me in a wheelbarrow, really, in a borrowed tractor and selling vegetables out of the back of my car to local shops. Yeah, and 40 years later, Riverford is a... 120 million pound business with 1,200 co-owners. It's owned by its workers now. Delivering 70,000 organic veg boxes pretty much around England and South Wales. Speaker 2 (2:16) Fantastic. So you've gone from a small three-acre vegetable farm to a business with 120 million turnovers, so 10 million a month. which is very substantial, and 1,200. What did you call your colleagues? Co-owners. Co-owners. So it's an employee Speaker 1 (2:34) -owned. Speaker 2 (2:34) One of 1,200, yeah. You're one of 1,200 employee-owned business, fully employee-owned. Speaker 1 (2:38) We Speaker 2 (2:38) became Speaker 1 (2:38) employee-owned in 2018 after, God, I think it was almost 20 years from when I first thought about it whilst working my way down a row of lettuces with a hoe to actually doing it in 2018. Speaker 1 (2:53) And I'm just absolutely delighted with the way it's gone. Speaker 2 (2:57) So I'm visualizing you and your hoe and the row of lettuces, thinking maybe gardening is a really good way to sort of stimulate creativity and ideas. And I mean, clearly your journey has been a remarkably productive one if Speaker 1 (3:11) you go from where you started Speaker 2 (3:12) to where you are and Speaker 1 (3:12) the number of people you have literally fed. We have fed a lot of people. So Speaker 2 (3:16) how did you go from A to Z or Zed? How did that happen? Speaker 1 (3:22) I pretty much put my head down and got on with it, really. I mean, I didn't, there have been, I think I've only ever once really written a business plan. And I think I'm quite a sort of intuitive thinker. I can be quite kind of emotionally driven, I think. And a lot of the decisions, the key decisions in my life were made like that. I'm quite introvert, I think. I'm dyslexic and autistic and I am... best on my own quite often and for me that is often in a field of vegetables or sometimes at home cooking those vegetables and and you know for the family and friends um Yeah, so I need peace and quiet. And you found that on the farm? That's where the ideas come to me. I still write a weekly newsletter which goes out with the veg boxes and I'm normally thinking about that while I'm out in the field or sometimes sitting on a surfboard but almost always on my own, yeah. Speaker 2 (4:24) Right. So you started out as a young man. You mentioned as a management consultant. You worked, I think, in London and New York. Yeah. And then... What happened? This is a big change to going to growing vegetables. Speaker 1 (4:36) Well, I always wanted to be a farmer, you know, ever since I pulled on my first pair of wellies, age two probably. Right. And I was always stomping around the farm. And I think that's kind of where I was happiest. But there was a time in my early 20s when I came back from university where I couldn't get on with my family and it was a family business. So I just one day I just decided I can't do this anymore. as many of my decisions have been. So you weren't Speaker 2 (5:02) getting on with your family at that time? No, I wasn't. You wanted to get away and do something. It was a bit of an Speaker 1 (5:05) Abel and Cain thing with my brother, and he was obviously going to win, so I thought I'd better leave, and so I did. And I had a first from Oxford, which got me a job as a management consultant in London. I had a very good shower, washed off all the cow shit, and bought myself a snappy suit. And the next day I was a management consultant. Presentation's important. Yeah, no, it was, though I think the appeal of them was... for me was they liked my maverickness I think right somehow presenting that to clients seemed to sort of work for them and I had a very independent way of thinking which I think was also quite useful if you're kind of challenging norms looking for new ways of doing business so I did that in London for a year or more every time I threatened to leave they doubled my salary and uh and then i said no i want to go and travel and they said well we'll send you to new york and you can open our office there so this was like only 18 months after i'd been so you're obviously good at the Speaker 2 (6:00) job Speaker 1 (6:00) i think Speaker 2 (6:01) i i think i Speaker 1 (6:02) was i do i do um Speaker 1 (6:06) You know I have struggled with various issues of mental health and so on but mostly I am blessed with a sort of Quite often with a sort of blind arrogance that I'm gonna do this my way and and I'm you know I'll listen to you a bit I'll try and learn what I can from you But I'm gonna do it my way and that seemed they seemed to sort of quite like that so I went off to New York and set open their office there and Speaker 1 (6:31) Actually, I love living in New York. I probably love living in New York rather too much actually. I took over a bit. And after six months or a year, I can't, I just couldn't do it anymore. So I jacked it in, sailed boats around for a bit and then came home and started growing organic vegetables back on the family Speaker 2 (6:47) farm. Speaker 1 (6:47) So how did you reconcile yourself with your family and brother? What happened? Oh, a lot of therapy. A lot of therapy. A lot of therapy, still going. So you recommend that. I mean, most families are a mess. I Speaker 2 (6:59) mean, Speaker 1 (6:59) you'd Speaker 2 (6:59) be Speaker 1 (6:59) a very Speaker 2 (7:00) open guy talking about being autistic and dyslexic. Yeah, well, we're Speaker 1 (7:05) all Speaker 2 (7:05) human beings. Human business is Speaker 1 (7:07) about human beings. And I find it really annoying when people pretend that it's not. You know, it's about how we live together and trade together. That's human relationships. It's not, you know, obviously, ultimately, it comes down to money. But if you don't respect the human element of that. And I find it really annoying when people won't do that, when people sit around a boardroom and pretend that we're all being completely rational when actually if you scratch the surface, 90 % of decisions are emotional anyway. And I think you might as well acknowledge that. And if you acknowledge it, you are probably going to be a better and safer leader and make better decisions. Yeah, so I think we should not be afraid of our humanity. We shouldn't be afraid of using... Words like love and, you know. Love Monday, it's right there. So Speaker 2 (7:56) I agree. You've said, though, that you make decisions intuitively quite a lot. Yeah. And you obviously think deeply a lot on your own, which is interesting to me. I do. Speaker 1 (8:07) That also is dangerous, and I do acknowledge that. It's dangerous. Yeah, I do think. I think self-knowledge, knowing about... why you make the decisions, how you make them, being able to be willing and welcoming challenge so that I make my decisions like that. I need to be surrounded by people who are sort of probably more data driven, who are more considered in their judgment. And I'm lucky that our CEO at Riverford is, I think, a very good complement to me and some of them. How long have you had that CEO? Oh, he's 12 years, I should think. Speaker 2 (8:37) So you found someone who compliments you? Yeah, Speaker 1 (8:39) I think Speaker 2 (8:39) we Speaker 1 (8:40) work really well together. How would you describe it, Rob? Speaker 1 (8:45) He's much more consultative in his decision-making. He's much safer. He's probably quite risk-averse. I think we are a good balance together, possibly too risk-averse. Sorry, Rob. You're the person who says, Speaker 2 (8:59) let's have a go, and he says, hang on a minute. Yeah, and Speaker 1 (9:02) he's normally right, and together we normally find a good way. There's Charlotte, who has been there for 20 years as well. What's her job? She started off in HR. I think her job is... change director or something now but basically she was also she was absolutely fantastic in the transition to employee ownership which was it was kind of my idea it was how I wanted to go but I just really hadn't I didn't have the skills to be able to deliver on it so Rob and Charlotte are both very good on and indeed the whole senior team are great on delivery I suppose if I have one worry you know post guy how the business will be I'm still the disruptor I'm still the creative and we need to you know we need to You need that element. Yeah, I think how businesses develop as they grow and mature and probably people like me are no longer the appropriate person to be leading them in that. So I guess I'm more of a sort of startup sort of person. You know, how you make that transition, but hopefully retaining enough of the entrepreneurial, disruptive, creative element. To be able to change because the world is changing around us and anyone who thinks the safe route is just to carry on doing what you're doing, I mean, that is absolutely guaranteed. Speaker 2 (10:16) Guy, you said something which sprung off the page to me when I was preparing for our conversation. If you're afraid of change, you're in trouble. You mean that as a business leader or an organisation? Speaker 1 (10:30) Yeah, I do. If you're, I'm 66 now and there are definitely days when I get up and I just feel tired of the pace of change. But that is, you know, if you're fearful of change, you know, in an ideal world, you're seeing change as an opportunity, opening new doors for development and so on. But, you know, if you become fearful of change and you just want to maintain the status quo and fight change, it's time to step aside, I think, really, and let someone else have a go. Speaker 2 (10:58) As an entrepreneur, as a business leader. in Speaker 1 (11:01) just about everything and Speaker 2 (11:02) just about everything well Speaker 1 (11:05) actually i mean i Speaker 2 (11:06) suppose that's what the word retire means you know retire from the fray yeah Speaker 1 (11:09) yeah Speaker 2 (11:10) you know good Speaker 1 (11:10) point yeah it's um i do long for a world that maybe pace of changes i mean it's so the pace is so fast now i mean as a farmer having just been through a drought you know on top of all the post-brexit changes on top of you know farmers being screwed over by supermarkets or whatever. It is just the abiding feeling I'm getting, you know, at the moment is one of just complete exhaustion. And I don't think it's just me at 66. I see it on the farm around me. It is. I think there is a limit to the rate of change that we as human beings can. cope with and capacity Speaker 2 (11:47) for Speaker 1 (11:47) i do think and i think we are being challenged at the moment things are changing so fast and of course ai and on top of that you know it is it's really hard for us all to keep up with it Speaker 2 (11:58) yeah so that's different though to being tired or wondering how to keep up is different to being fearful of it isn't Speaker 1 (12:05) it it is and there's no doubt that as you get older you know your appetite for stability um You know, increases. We just change, I think. And I do think I still have a lot to contribute, but I think it is time for other people to step into my shoes in a lot of areas. Speaker 2 (12:26) Which you've done in a very interesting way, which we'll come to with the employee ownership. But you mentioned a moment ago about the supermarkets and you've said that cheap food is not really that cheap. So what's happening here? What's your philosophy around? Food Speaker 1 (12:43) production and consumption. So we... I mean, farming is now down to 0.6 % of GDP. I mean, we most of us spend on average around about 10 % on food, but what actually goes of our income on food, but what actually goes to the farmer is about 0.6 % food at the farm gate has just got cheaper and cheaper and cheaper. And what we spend on food, whether in a supermarket, on a restaurant. particularly in a supermarket, has got relatively cheaper, but that's a double whammy for the farmer because the share that they get has just declined and declined and declined. When they repealed the Corn Laws in 1846, 75 % of the cost of a loaf of bread went to a farmer. Today, it would be about 5%. And the loaf of bread is cheaper as well. Speaker 2 (13:30) So five or six P in the pound is all the farmer gets when you spend money on food. It varies by Speaker 1 (13:34) product. For meat, it would be more. For vegetables, it might be 25 pence in the pound. Which begs Speaker 2 (13:40) the Speaker 1 (13:40) question, where's the other 95 Speaker 2 (13:41) pence go? Speaker 1 (13:42) It's gone into the retailer's pockets. It's gone into the food processing pockets. And we have a completely dysfunctional food system where all that money has been spent on the middle. But we're getting... Speaker 1 (13:56) certainly in the last 20 years, just worse and worse food. And we're seeing that. you know, at the doors of our hospitals and doctor surgeries with obesity and type 2 diabetes. You know, we have a completely dysfunctional food system, which is the result of a completely rational application of neoliberal economics. You know, so, but the result of it is completely irrational. If you look at it, you know, how we are behaving, you know, we all live in an obesogenic environment where we are tempted to eat the foods which are... killing us literally yeah literally so what Speaker 2 (14:32) what's the solution to that that sounds like i mean that sounds i mean that's literally a systemic