Riverford and Abel and Cole - The Contrasting Styles of Guy Watson and Keith Abel

The two big names in organic veg boxes have been in the news recently, but their messages could not be more different.

Guy Watson has been explaining that the price of Riverford’s produce is typically 20% less than the supermarket equivalent and that whilst this means low margins (typically 3-4%), he is not overly bothered because this pricing strategy fits with his values of good food, good farming and good business at affordable prices.

Keith Abel’s coverage was all about Keith and how since his return to Abel and Cole two years after he sold it to private equity firm Phoenix netting about £20 million in the process, the business has grown and profitability been restored.

Both companies are of a similar size. Riverford claims to deliver about 47,000 boxes a week, and grew sales by 2.4% to £39.5m in the year to April 2011. Abel and Cole, according to the Sunday Times article of 12^th December, claims to deliver to over 50,000 households a week. It had reported sales of £36m in the year to August 2011, up from £28.7m, and made an operating profit of £1.5m.

The two companies might operate in the same market and be similar in size but the philosophies of their founders are very different.

Keith Abel would probably take great offence if accused of being cash driven despite his windfall from the sale to Phoenix, and despite admitting to the Ecologist in June 2011 that one of the reasons he came back to Abel and Cole was because “they offered me a great package”. Even his barrister friend Jeremy Hall quoted in the Sunday Times said that “Keith likes making money”, although he did qualify the comment adding that he possesses a “strong moral compass”.

Nevertheless, the sudden burst of publicity seems tied into the wish of Lloyds bank, current backers of Abel and Cole in which Keith Abel still owns a 20% stake, to sell the business in the next twelve months on the back of an improved company performance.

By contrast, Guy Watson, in a piece posted on the Riverford website just a day after the Sunday Times Abel interview, says that he would never sell his company to venture capitalists, that he is uncomfortable about "unbridled capitalism", and that whatever the future shape of Riverford it must involve people "who are intimately involved in determining its success”.

Does it matter whether one founder of a business is driven more by wealth and another more by values? Possibly not.  In the case of veg boxes customers perhaps only worry about the quality of the food and reassurance that produce is appropriately farmed or grown.

I would guess though that any customer who trades the convenience of shopping for what they want when they want it for downsides of veg boxes like being tied to a delivery day, never being quite sure what they will contain, and having to polish up cooking skills because something unfamiliar has turned up, might be deeply interested in the whole ethos of a company and those who work in it.