Trade talk with Karim Asaad/
The importance of community support in the pulses industry

To start, can you tell me a bit about yourself and Brooks & Kempton?

I’m the head of Brooks & Kempton, a family business based in Hertfordshire, UK, and Kimpex International in Egypt. I started in the trade of pulses and seeds after graduating from University in 1990 and now have more than 30 years of experience.

After closely studying the market Brooks & Kempton formed in 2012, and we focus on exporting fava beans, our main markets are North and East Africa and parts of Europe and Asia.

We’ve been successfully growing year on year, and in 2018, we received an award from Hertfordshire’s Chamber of Commerce to recognise this. The award was for exporters who have progressed the pulses business in the UK. We are members of Pulses UK, too.

We’re considered one of the main exporters of fava beans as a pulse commodity from Hertfordshire and other parts of the UK. We also do some from Europe from other countries like Germany and Lithuania. Brooks & Kempton also works with seeds and other pulses. This includes sesame seeds, sunflower seeds and bird feed, and pulses like lentils, chickpeas, and lupins, from Australia, Ethiopia, Ukraine, Canada, Argentina, Brazil and Turkey. We move hundreds of containers from Australia, as our main supplier for pulses, and move them round to the Middle East. 

Could you tell me a bit more about the pulses you work with?

Fava beans are the commodity we serve a lot of, which we do in volume from the UK. The UK produces about 500,000 -700,000 metric tonnes, and there are two varieties: the winter beans planted in December to January and harvested in August to September, and then spring beans planted in March to April and harvested in September to October. That said, this depends on the production area. The south of the country starts harvesting in September, and mid-August, while in the north, it’s harvested from September onwards to October.

Over the past three years, Britain has been providing more supply than other European countries and is one of the main suppliers of Europe. France, for example, has more beans going to the feed market and not so much for the human consumption market, so the UK has the advantage. 

The other commodities we focus on from other European countries include beans from Germany, where we ship bulk containers and sometimes processed split-beans from Germany, a commodity consumed widely for falafel sandwiches. We do some good volumes from Australia, which is one of the biggest suppliers, although it depends, sometimes they have a short supply. However, this year and last year, they had a good crop. 

Other commodities we do include lentils from Australia, Canada and some Eastern European countries like Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. We trade lupins from Australia and Chile, green peas from the UK, sometimes to Europe, or procured from Canada, sometimes from Argentina, and we serve our customers all over the world, wherever the demand is.

And, how have exports been this year, in light of all of the logistical issues and global challenges?

Yes, it’s a long story, and everyone wants to know what’s happening. In regards to the UK and Brexit, there has definitely been an impact. The other day I read that there is an 80,000 truck driver shortage in the US, that’s a big number, and the UK is facing similar shortages. After Brexit, many Eastern European truck drivers returned home. So, the impact has been felt when it comes to moving goods from the farmlands to the processing plants. Similarly, the same difficulties are being experienced with not being able to find free containers to move goods from the port, and I’ve heard from colleagues that there’s big congestion at Felixstowe port. It's a big issue for the English market. 

The same is being felt in Australia, with shipping line issues. We cannot sell the pulses with $50 to $100 extra per metric tonne due to the higher freight rates of one shipping line to another. So, it’s difficult to compete and convince customers that we’re increasing that much of a level, to put that commodity at $400 to $500 value, and another $100 just for the freight. There were two container vessels cancelled in October, and today I heard another two container vessels were cancelled, or rolled for two to four weeks in the first week of November. That’s putting on more pressure and leading to shortages in the market.

The market is definitely complicated because of the competition, the stocks, the flow in the shipments pipeline, and the carryover from previous crops in local markets, and selling is challenging. Right now, I think it’s from hand-to-mouth; everybody is waiting for offers and for when you can ship. We’re giving ourselves a minimum of two to three months for any contract because we don’t want customers to be upset with the shortage; we’re trying to deal with it as best we can and serve our customers.

Could you expand on how you’re dealing with these challenges and delays?

It’s not been easy to sort. We have to work wisely and keep serving customers who have been respected contacts with us; we have to give them the maximum support. The same thing with the shipping lines and haulage companies, the parties who give us the shipping service, all respect us and try to book us in advance. We try to organise our thinking, too, so, for example, if we ship 100 to 200 containers a month, we try to book as much as we can in advance and then declare our schedule whenever we buy goods and start to match the orders with shipping bookings. 

It’s all about planning ahead, but we’re being covered by our service providers as we try to navigate the supply chain issues. It's not going to be easy, and I think it's going to last at least six to 12 months. But, with the good understanding of our customers, and the support of the people in shipping and haulage, we can overcome this.

In light of that, could you tell me a bit about your export numbers?

For fava beans, volume-wise, we only do bulk containers, and that’s from the UK, Europe, and Australia. We do 150 to 200 containers as we maximise our stretch in the shipping, but we currently do between 75 and 100 a month due to the current situation. That’s because of the empty boxes situation, cancellations, the rolling of booking, and sometimes with Australia, due to long transit.

In the UK, we ship thousands of metric tonnes to some African nations. Due to security and port issues, some countries are not able to open their ports and shipping lines are not providing bookings for these countries. 

This year, the good qualities of fava beans will be much less. From Europe, we’re seeing shortages. At the end quarter of the year, from September to now, we couldn’t collect the same amount that we used to buy. 

And what are your observations around the UK’s domestic market? 

In the UK, it’s a very big market for green peas. We have two main varieties, blue peas, which are the smaller size of green peas and marrowfat peas, which are bigger. Production-wise there are similar quantities of the fava beans, around 400,000 - 500,000 metric tonnes, sometimes 600,000. This year we’re seeing a shortage of marrowfat peas. To cover the current customer base, we’re not able to sell for new customers because of this shortage. 

The UK government is promoting pulses consumption, and Pulses UK is engaging with the government to do this; as an organisation, they introduce pulses to students in schools, and together we’re trying to make people more aware of the health benefits.

Regarding beans, bean flour is now consumed widely in the bread industry, and it’s seen especially in french baguettes. Now, around 30-40% of the flour is processed using fava beans. In the UK, one of the new things we're seeing right now is the use of the protein byproducts from fava beans, too, and people are becoming more aware that they’re much better than soybeans.

There are so many different innovations happening with pulses, but what's ahead and what’s on the horizon for Brooks & Kempton?

Well, from 10 years of business in the UK and 30 years of business in Egypt, you can see, everywhere in the world is beginning to focus more on ‘healthy foods.’ So looking ahead, we want to maximise our trading and processing of pulses and get more people to consume pulses in all markets. 

As a family business, our team is working hard to promote and export fava beans, not just to the countries we’re used to; we’re trying to extend this to Asian countries, too. We’re also extending more and more into decorticated beans, where you peel the husk out of the bean, and then that goes to the fish market and pet food. So, the whole supply goes to human consumption and animal feed, in a commodity that serves the industry, the market and increases benefits to everyone in the supply chain.

We’re happy with the success of our business; we had a small amount of trade in our first year, but the business is like a plant that you water and nurture. Difficult business conditions come and make things challenging, but you take care of the plant, and it grows. 

We’re now into the millions with trades and exports, and everyone is trying to grow with us. Year after year, we’re getting better and better, and we’re successful because of the support of everyone around us.