Sam Marriage, managing director of WHM Pet Group, talks to pbwnews editor Justine Thompson
1. Can you give us a brief history of Marriage’s?
Marriage’s was established in 1824 by twins William and Henry Marriage, milling the wheat they grew on their family farm. The business grew rapidly, using wind and water power to mill bread flour and livestock feed. Today it is still run, owned and operated by descendants of William and Henry, with shareholding split 50/50 between them. Until 2012, the business predominately produced flour and animal feeds. Then the pet division was introduced, growing from nothing to an expected turnover of £35m this year. We are an independent, trustworthy family business and I am especially proud that we have grown supporting innovative, high quality solutions for independent food and pet retailers, as well as building strong partnerships with them.
2. What was your first job?
My first job was aged around 13/14 years old in the maintenance department of Marriage’s, working during the holidays. I would help the engineering department do little jobs that made me feel part of the business, even if it was just holding the spanners! Thinking about it, Dad was very clever in letting me help so he could coach and teach me along the way, introducing me to the company from such a young age. I wanted to work at Marriage’s ever since I was young. I grew up feeling a great sense of ownership and pride in being part of such a respectable business. I moved to agricultural college in Yorkshire and fell in love with the county. I started working at Cranswick Pet Products in 2002, leaving in 2012. This seemed like the perfect time and a very logical next step to set up a Northern-based pet division of Marriage’s.
3. How many brands are in the WHM Group?
The group structure is W&H Marriage & Sons, our parent company, which has operations in flour and animal feed in Essex. It produces a variety of artisan, culinary, white, brown and wholemeal flours as well as an extensive range of livestock feeds and specialist pelleted diets to zoos, smallholdings and independent retailers. Within this group, WHM Pet Group operates the pet activities within the business. W&M Marriage Group (including WHM Pet) turnover for this year was around £65m, with the pet division turning over £35million. The whole group covers flour, farm animals, pets and wild bird care.
Marriage’s Feed is our predominant brand, targeting independent retailers. Honeyfields is our wild bird brand, one of the broadest ranges of wild bird care products on the market. Our target retailers include garden centres, independent retailers and DIY stores. Focusing on current trends, consumer behaviours and wildlife conservation, we use this to develop the brand further and bring awareness of our important message about how feeding Honeyfields can help sustain wildlife and support conservation.
RSPB is the other wild bird brand that we distribute. We started manufacturing RSPB’s feeds a while ago but began distributing it into retailers two years ago. This is by far one of the strongest retail brands in bird care, in terms of consumer recognition, with the RSPB having around 1.5 million members.
4. How has the company been affected by the pandemic?
On the pet division side we have really grown, especially during the past year. We’re incredibly thankful to the PFMA (Pet Food Manufacturers’ Association), which has hugely supported the pet care market during the pandemic. Pet shops staying open as ‘essential’ during these times wasn’t by accident, but down to the hard work of the PFMA pushing for stores to stay open and staff to be recognised as key workers.
The fastest increasing pet being bought during lockdown was chickens, so we have seen a huge increase in chicken feed sales. We have also benefitted from people feeding the garden birds while they’ve been at home more. Overall, all the divisions have been fortunate during the pandemic and, more recently, we’ve also benefitted from our commodity holding stocks. It’s given us a real advantage as recent commodity price increases have enabled us to provide what other businesses may not have done.
I must mention our fantastic team. We didn’t have to put anyone on furlough; if anything everyone worked the hardest they possibly could to ensure we could still supply retailers and we have been continuing to recruit and grow the team. The staff, customers and suppliers have all supported us tremendously through the past year and I’m so grateful for that.
5. With hope on the horizon for 2021 and beyond, what are your plans for Marriage’s?
We’ve made enormous investments at our manufacturing site in Driby, Lincolnshire, spending over £1.6m on equipment to help improve and increase production. There’s been a considerable number of projects going on to improve our capacity, significant NPD and plans to launch this into the market. This will be a large focus of our 2021 season and we’re really looking forward to being able to deliver the benefits and pursue all the new opportunities the year brings. This next year will see us continuing to support independent trade with shorter lead times and even better stock availability.
6. How do you keep up to date with current market trends?
We set the trends! As well as doing a lot of consumer research and having strong partnerships, such as with the RSPB, we are driven by a strong technical understanding of the market through being members of the PFMA and having an extremely strong, hard-working sales team who are heavily involved in our NPD. Most of our staff are involved and passionate about the market we trade in, from pet lovers, chicken keepers to wild bird feeders.
7. Why did you launch Honeyfields in 2015?
Honeyfields is a Fair to Nature, ethical brand and the market had become very commoditised. No one was catering for the ethical, sustainable consumers, which a lot of wild bird feeders are. As a keen ornithologist, farmer and ethical consumer, I’d always be looking for ways to tie up my interest in conservation farming with my love of birds and the ability to produce products that were more sustainable.
8. How has the market for rabbit and guinea pig feeds progressed in recent years?
Since we established Marriages there’s been a huge emphasis in the marketplace on the importance of the correct nutrition for rabbits and guinea pigs and an improved understanding of their needs. There is a sense of responsibility now for the industry to deal with some of the confusion around this, addressing what consumers should and shouldn’t feed. It’s a really good time for the industry to work constructively together, improving consumer awareness, welfare implications and good nutrition. We believe that specialist pet channels create a huge opportunity for specialist pet to really understand the foods they sell and the benefits of them.
9. Marriages is well known for its eye-catching presence at trade shows. Why is that?
It’s important in business not to take yourselves too seriously. The greatest thing through having a bit of fun at the trade shows is that it makes us very approachable and it makes the shows a lot funnier for everyone else, as well as for us on the stand. Having walked a lot of trade shows in the past, they can quickly become very corporate – we aren’t corporate, we see ourselves more as being part of the industry!
10. Do you have any pets yourself and do you enjoy feeding and watching wild birds?
I have three dogs named Spike, Jazz and Thorn. We have sheep and I’m a very enthusiastic bird feeder at home, being a member of the RSPB since I left university. My wife, Lynne, and I are very keen about conservation on the farm, where we have three red list endangered bird species. I’ve also just put up a new owl box as we see quite a few visit the farm.
