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SUPPLY CHAIN AND OPERATIONS ADVISORY

Food and farming supply chains, diagnosed properly.

I help the businesses that grow, make, move and sell food in the North of England and Scotland find the money their supply chain is losing, and keep it. One adviser, fixed fees, on site.

Whitby harbour and the East Cliff

WHY UPEPO

What I am trying to achieve

Most of the margin a food or farming business loses goes between buying an input and being paid for the output: in haulage, stock, spoilage, planning, and the prices one part of a group charges another. It rarely shows on a single line of the accounts. My job is to find it, put a figure on it, and help the people who run the business keep it.

Alongside my work with UK businesses, I bring the same commercial discipline to humanitarian and development supply chains in East Africa, where a lower cost per tonne means more people reached.

Not sure what is wrong?

Start with the Supply Chain Diagnostic: two to four weeks on site and in your numbers, for a fixed fee. You get a ranked list of what to fix, what each item is worth and who should own it.

Already know?

Go straight to the work. Each engagement is scoped and priced before it starts.

Neither quite fits?

Tell me the problem. The services are what clients ask for most often, not the limit of what I do.

14%

off the cost of production — pig farming business

9%

less spoilage, 7% off export logistics cost — horticulture exporter

11%

of working capital released — nut wholesaler

9%

more sold, once sales and production planned as one — horticulture exporter

Each figure comes from a completed engagement and links to its case study. More are added as clients agree to publication.

WHO I WORK WITH

Six parts of the northern food chain

Sheep grazing beneath a tree by a farmhouse and dry-stone wall near York

Livestock and feed

Feed, inputs, animal performance, cash and haulage: where a livestock margin goes.

Read more →
Dairy plant beside the River Ribble at Settle, North Yorkshire

Food manufacturing and wholesale

Stock rising faster than sales, and an office rebuilding the same reports every month.

Read more →
Aerial view of a tractor working an arable field near Wakefield, Yorkshire

Fresh produce and arable

Losses between the field and the lorry, and a harvest planned from memory.

Read more →
Stone field barn and dry-stone walls on a Yorkshire Dales hillside

Family farming groups and estates

Several companies, one family, and money moving between them that nobody can see.

Read more →
Fishing boats moored in Arbroath harbour, Scotland

Seafood and chilled food

Short shelf life, uneven landings and a cold chain that costs more than it records.

Read more →
Log stacks at Kenmuir Sawmill, Dalbeattie, Dumfries and Galloway

Timber and imported goods

Proving where the wood came from, product by product and batch by batch.

Read more →
Food sacks and equipment stacked in an aid warehouse at Dadaab, Kenya

FURTHER AFIELD

Humanitarian and development

I help aid agencies and development projects move food and supplies further for less, drawing on the private sector and on humanitarian operations in East Africa.

Where I would start: Cost per tonne delivered

WAYS OF WORKING

How I work

Document with a tick

One fee, agreed before work starts.

No day rates, no retainers, no hours that creep.

Magnifying glass

The diagnosis comes first.

I am paid to find the problem, not to guess at it. The diagnostic is the sensible place to start, not a condition of working together.

Bar chart

Your numbers, not industry averages.

Every figure is built from your own records and reconciled to your accounts.

Two people

Tested on the yard floor.

Nothing goes in a report until it has survived a conversation with the person who does the job.

FIELD NOTES

What the work turns up

The EU food deal lifts paperwork from one border and lays it on another

SEAFOOD AND CHILLED FOOD

The EU food deal lifts paperwork from one border and lays it on another

Britain and the EU have agreed a draft deal to end most checks on food and farm exports, with leaders due to sign it on…

The Budget let farmers down. Now the margin has to come from inside the farm.

LIVESTOCK AND FEED

The Budget let farmers down. Now the margin has to come from inside the farm.

Farmers asked for breathing space and got almost none. John Healey's first Budget extended a fuel duty cut that was…

A UK food reserve: what to hold, where, and how to keep it fresh

STRATEGIC RESILIENCE

A UK food reserve: what to hold, where, and how to keep it fresh

Britain emptied its last food depots in 1995. With war on the continent and the NAO warning that Defra leans too hard…

Tell me what is not working.

A twenty-minute call costs nothing and usually shows us both whether there is work worth doing. If there is not, I will say so.

Email: hugo@upepoconsulting.com
Phone: +44 7834 55 8050

I reply to every enquiry within one working day.

Thank you. I will reply within one working day.

By sending this you agree to me holding your details in order to reply. Nothing else. See the privacy notice.

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