Pet project: Roger Bracewell interview – Lancashire Business View

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By Ged Henderson
Aug 12 2022
Roger Bracewell isn’t keen on following the crowd, instead he is firmly striding out in the opposite direction.
While business competitors are increasingly focusing on the world of e-commerce you won’t find any of his family firm’s products for sale on the likes of Amazon.
Roger is chairman of GA Pet Food Partners, winner of this year’s Red Rose Awards large business category, and a true Lancashire success story.
The firm has just opened its new £85m ‘world-leading’ Ingredient Kitchen, designed to produce high quality pet food at its Bretherton plant.
That food is being created to supply the independent pet trade with its own brand products. It’s a massive global market, made even larger by the decision of growing numbers of brand manufacturers to take their operations online.
From humble beginnings in the 1990s, GA Pet Food Partners today employs 850 people and has a £145m turnover. More than 40 per cent of those sales are made overseas, with the business exporting to 37 countries.
The operation makes and sells 80,000 tonnes of dried pet food a year through an operation running 24/7. As well as its Plocks Farm manufacturing site, set in the Lancashire countryside, it has an expansive distribution and fulfilment centre at Buckshaw Village.
Roger, 62, says: “Our whole business is about doing something different, not following anyone else. Brands are increasingly looking towards the internet; we’re moving in the opposite direction and turning our back on the internet.
“That shift in the market has given us a large opportunity, 80 per cent of sales are still through independent pet shops. That is the sector we are committed to supporting and serving. We see them as our partners, it’s in our name, and we treat them as such.”
Those independent shops need pet food to get customers through the door and the Lancashire business delivers, providing products they can put their brand on. It will fulfil orders as small as one bag of food.
Europe remains a major market. With subsidiary companies based across the continent, GA Pet Food Partners saw its European sales grew by 60 per cent last year and is hoping they will reach £40m next year. Japan is another lucrative and growing outlet.
Roger talks about how the business is committed to delivering quality at an affordable price and how selling direct improves its customers margins – all key weapons in its armoury. 
Roger says there have been other shifts in the sector that the business has seized on to its advantage. He points out that today there are 3.2 million more pets in the UK than at the start of the pandemic.
And he explains that the ‘humanisation’ of those pets has led to them becoming part of the family, with households now spending on their animals at the same levels they spend on their children. This emergence of ‘pet parents’ also means they are focused on buying premium products for their loved ones. 
The investment in the Ingredient Kitchen is one response to that drive for quality. Work began on the new facility in 2016 and now it is open it allows GA to know the source of all raw materials in its products. It provides complete traceability throughout the process.
The kitchen also has automated guided vehicles, labs for R&D and storage for more than five million kilogrammes of ingredients. Roger says: “The fact we can track and trace all the ingredients that go into each bag is a huge development.
“Each of those bags has a unique code telling the end user exactly what is in it. That is a great selling point for us.”
The new facility is delivering 21st century automation to the manufacturing process, but the company still looks to its farming roots. The original Plocks Farm building still sits in a corner of the Bretherton site, pointed out by Roger on an aerial picture on the office wall.
 
Farming is in Roger’s blood. His father Tom took over the farm in the 1950s, growing crops and raising sheep. His background was in agriculture as farmer, landowner and land agent.
The venture started turning the wheat it produced into meal in the 1990s in response to Europe’s growing ‘grain mountain’. That major surplus, created by the Common Agricultural Policy, drove the need for UK farmers to diversify.
It was a small venture at first, pouring the grain into a machine powered by a tractor. Roger says: “We soon found we could make more money selling the meal than the actual grain. Things developed from there.”
Roger, who studied at the Royal Agricultural College and set off on his own career in land management, took over running the family business at the age of 28 when his father suffered a serious riding injury, passing away five years later. 
He describes it as a “massive shock” and he talks of “a steep learning curve”. Roger continued to run his own land agency alongside the venture, until the demands of GA became too great and he needed to focus all his attention and energy on it. He says: “You have to have clear focus on what you’re doing and why you are doing it.
“The growth and development we’ve had have come step by step. It’s the farmers’ mentality that there is nothing you can’t do if you put your mind to it.
“Really our story is one of consistent evolution and improvement, always looking to do better. Some things work, some don’t, but you carry on and move forward.”
The firm still grows its own wheat and barley and Roger farms 500 acres, describing it as his way of relaxing from the day-to-day business of GA.
He stresses being a family business is “essential” to the company, describing it as “the fundamental heart of what we do.”
Certainly, family connections are strong. His brother Giles is a director, his son William is production director and daughter Georgina has the role of communications director. Another of Roger’s sons, James, runs the European sales team.
But the family ethos goes deeper than those blood ties and encompasses every part of the operation. Roger says: “We see everyone in the business as our family and we continually strive to build on that.”
That was in evidence during the pandemic as the business continued to work to feed the nation’s pets. GA opened its own ‘academy’ to provide a safe and happy environment that looked after the children of its key workers. It also partnered with a local transport firm to ferry those colleagues to and from their homes.
Roger is also a proud Lancastrian and is delighted at the business’ Red Rose Awards win this year. The judges said: “Our winner is an exemplar for other manufacturers in Lancashire, with impressive investments in the business, its people and the community.”
He says: “We are very much local business and we’ve had great support from Chorley council throughout our journey.
“The fact is there are some amazing businesses in Lancashire. As a county we need to do more to celebrate who we are and what we can do. Let’s shout about our businesses and their successes, let the world know what we are capable of.”
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