Quality Equipment is celebrating its half-century this year. It was in 1965 that founder, Glyn Baker, decided to set up as an agricultural engineer, initially repairing machinery and tractors then specialising in pig equipment, establishing what was to become one of Britain’s best known and largest firms in the field.
The £5million turnover company manufactures and distributes a huge range of pig equipment from drinkers to package-deal systems. Initially aimed at the UK market, it now exports hi-tech pig equipment globally – to Japan, China, the United States and Australasia, as well as to Europe.
In addition to pig equipment, it has a thriving construction division, making buildings not just for pig producers but universities and research centres, such as the Royal Veterinary College.
It was an intense interest in working with metal inherited from his father – combined with a farming background – that set Glyn on his future path.
He was born in 1944 on 60-acre Poplar Farm, Woolpit, where the firm is still based. His father had taken on the tenancy of the mixed farm from Glyn’s grandfather, who had moved down from Scotland in the 1930s. His dad worked for the wartime agricultural department and helped farmers – and Women’s Land Army girls - plough and cultivate their land.
He received training as a blacksmith and in engineering, which was particularly useful when machinery broke down as it frequently did in those days. His multi-skilled father worked for a builder – building the bungalow in which they lived – and turned his hand to designing and making equipment for his own farm and other farmers.
This was the environment in which young Glyn grew up. The mixed farm had a small herd of half-a-dozen sows.
He chose an agricultural syllabus at nearby Beyton school and made a wooden pig ark there – a sign of things to come. Arks are again a familiar sight, particularly in Suffolk, with the resurgence of outdoor pig-keeping.
However, the farm wasn’t large enough to support Glyn when he left school at 15 so, having passed the entrance exam, he enrolled at Rycotewood College in Thame, Oxfordshire, for a five-year engineering course and apprenticeship. He successfully completed his apprenticeship, spending the remaining four years attending the college eight weeks a year while working for two local engineering firms.
A big turning point came in 1965 when, at the age of 21, he married Jennifer. Like his father, he decided to build his own home and, to make ends meet, started undertaking contract combining and emergency repairs for local arable farmers. His father made his own welding machine, so this was a great attraction for local farmers. “It was all very unsophisticated then – a 27ft by 20ft Nissen hut being used as a workshop – but I never actually went back to ‘being employed’,” said Glyn.
It was in 1967 that Glyn made his first ‘bespoke’ piece of pig equipment – a farrowing crate. As was the trend then, a local farmer wanted to intensify and needed equipment, particularly crates. Word got around, but Glyn had been trading as a general agricultural engineer under the name G E Baker Agricultural Engineering.
“It was difficult to become recognised as a specialist tradesperson so I really needed a trade name and the name “Quality Equipment” was registered. The company started advertising under this new name, attended the Suffolk Show and, in 1971, exhibited for the first time at what was then the Pig and Poultry Fair, run by the feed firm, BOCM, at Stoke Mandeville in Buckinghamshire.”
This was significant for the company. Not only did it establish the “QE” name, Glyn made a vital contact. After the fair a German - Arnie Baier – appeared “out of the blue” at the door of his home and wanted to know if Glyn would become an agent for the large continental firm Lohmann, which made equipment, particularly feeding systems.
“We had no written contracts – just a ‘gentleman’s agreement’ but we had a good 10 years selling both wet and dry feeding systems for pigs. It introduced us to new technologies but, more important, because of their name, size and reputation, this arrangement opened doors for us on the continent. We were introduced to the benefits of imports and exports,” said Glyn. “We got a taste for Europe and started exhibiting at overseas trade fairs.”
On the home front, things were booming, too. The UK pig industry was one of the most advanced in Europe at that time and was intensifying rapidly. Farmers were mostly keeping their breeding herds indoors at that stage having been introduced to the benefits of farrowing crates and sows stalls as recommended by advisory services and validated on demonstration farms, such as the NAC pig unit. Better sow management resulted in a 40% increase in sow productivity from the early sixties and pig farming was very profitable. Such was the demand that QE had a 12-week waiting list for farrowing crates and sows stalls, despite employing 40 staff at its Woolpit works.
However, a series of financial crises resulted in pig producers losing money and many quit the industry and this, of course, hit QE. The pig industry suffered another blow when, following pressure by the animal welfare lobby, sow stalls were unilaterally banned in the UK in 1999. Pig producers had to change their systems completely to loose-housing.
“This was costly and put them at a commercial disadvantage compared with their continental counterparts. It was compounded by further price slumps and an outbreak of swine fever.
The company had virtually to re-invent itself but did so very successfully by diverting resources to research and development.
“We took on students and graduates to introduce new technology which had real economic benefits to both farmers and QE as a result of improved pig management,” said Glyn.
In 1993 a new research and development arm was set up headed by engineering design graduate Mark Harding, now a director of the company. Of particular note was the development of the automatic Transition feeder, which helped piglets make the change from milk to solid feed after weaning.
Earlier, the company took on the German Nürtinger nursery unit which was a welfare-friendly, energy- efficient rearing system, particularly for small and weakly piglets, developed at the University of Nürtingen, in southern Germany by Professor Schwarting. This had a big impact with many producers visiting the first farm on which it was installed in Suffolk.
QE’s continental links were strengthened when the company appointed Michael Mattmüller, a graduate from that university to provide support for farmers using the system.
The concentration on systems and equipment that would help producers become more efficient paid off. In 2005, Glyn handed over the reins to his sons with Jamie as managing director and Graham looking after marketing. Glyn and Jennifer remain on the board as non-executive directors but while he is there for advice he insists that day-to-day running and major decisions on the future are made by them.
“I’ve been fortunate to have the full support of my wife, Jennifer, and family while building up the business, and a very loyal staff,” he said.
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