With more than 50 years’ experience in the industry, Rochford Agri Contractors in Co Wexford continue to add to their clientele list thanks to a glowing reputation. Rick Rochford filled Irish Tractor & Agri in on what they’ve been up to lately.
Based in Kilmannon, Cleariestown, Co Wexford, Rochford Agri Contractors’ origins date back to a time when Richard Rochford first started out in the agri contracting business. Now, 52 years later, his two sons have taken over the company he built from the ground up and he remains involved to this day at 73 years young.
“My father would’ve started in this business back in 1965 and he just kept building and building it. He’s 73 now and is still going strong for us here,” Rick stated.
Richard’s many years of experience have proved invaluable to the company and helped it to offer its clients a variety of different services when it comes to their agri contracting needs.
Brothers Rick and Eoin Rochford are running the show presently.
Today the company employs up to eight staff during the summer period and the family also runs 300 acres of tillage on the side, keeping them plenty busy for 12 months of the year.
Rick pointed out that there isn’t much left out when it comes to what they can offer their customers.
“It’s more a case of what we don’t do,” he laughed. “We do everything from cutting silage to baling straw and we’d do a good bit of re-seeding as well as haulage and digger hire.
“We do all the aspects of tillage work, along with dung spreading too, and the only thing I can think of off the top of my head that we don’t do would be lime spreading. So we offer basically everything apart from that.”
Having such a wide range definitely helps to attract new clientele and Richard was glad to report that they’re continuing to grow their customer numbers year on year.
With trends like that the Rochfords can have no complaints business-wise, having already built up a strong base of loyal clients.
“If you don’t pick up new jobs it can become slack, so thankfully we’ve been able to pick up a couple of new ones lately,” said Rick.
“The harvest period is an extremely busy time for us and it’s all hands on deck. Silage is a real doddle in comparison and we’d get all out silage done here in about 10 days compared to 20-years ago when silage took all summer.
“We do a fair bit of hedge-cutting as well and that helps to keep men working here all year round. “Most of our work would be within a 20-mile radius.”
He added: “A lot of our customers that have been with us for a long time would be there 30 years before my time and that’s down to the work my father did for them.
“On top of that we’ve brought in a couple more (customers) now but repeat business is definitely the backbone of this company.”
Indeed it will remain the backbone of most successful companies. But what’s been the Rochfords’ secret?
How have the family managed to stay afloat for more than half a century in what can very often be a tough industry for businesses to last the duration?
“I suppose we never gave our customers a reason to change,” said Rick.
“We have a good relationship with them and look, sometimes you win some and sometimes you lose some. But, in general, we tend to hang on to them.”
The Rochfords tend to hang on to their tractors too.
Operating a fleet which is made up of Fords and New Hollands, Rochford Agri Contractors are known for getting the job done to a top class standard and keeping their machinery running smoothly in the process.
As well as that, they’re also known for investing wisely.
“We don’t buy new machinery,” Rick pointed out. “The newest tractor that we have here would be a 2010 New Holland and the last new tractor that we bought would’ve been back in 1993, it was an 8240.
“It’s hard to justify new machinery. We have 10 tractors here. We’d also have a John Deere 7700 Silage Harvester, a John Deere 9780 Combine, Volvo and JCB loaders, a few balers and a JCB digger.
“We do all the maintenance work on the machinery ourselves. We find that the only money you have is the money you save.”
Those are true words from a candid man and the hopes for Rick and co are that business will continue to thrive as well as it has been in recent years.
Should the busy times continue then the staff numbers could well be set to go up at Rochford Agri Contractors, but Rick explained that for now they’re quite happy with where they’re at.
“We’re always trying to find new ways to keep men here all year round. That’s the challenge and thankfully it has been going well in recent years,” he concluded.
Rochford Agri Contractors
Address: Kilmannon,
Cleariestown,
Co Wexford
Tel: 053 913 9246
Taken from Irish Tractor & Agri magazine Vol 5 No 5, July/August 2017
