The benefits of strong corporate culture

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Cranswick has a rich history. Having started life as a small farmer’s pig-feed business in East Yorkshire in the 1970s, it has since grown into a national business that employs over 16,000 people. It supplies pretty much every supermarket and food service business in the country, in addition to shipping its produce to a range of overseas markets.

The company really took off when management decided to raise the quality of the sausages and bacon on the shelves of the UK’s supermarkets, an idea the supermarkets jumped at, as it increased footfall in their fresh food aisles. Cranswick also offered this service ‘white label’, allowing supermarkets to use their own brands, each having a different recipe and packaging, to reduce obvious comparison with their competitors. The idea blossomed. Cranswick’s produce came to occupy a significant share of shelf space across most large chains. The next wave of growth came from targeting high-value proteins like pork and poultry and branching into deli counters, leading to another rapid expansion of their in-store footprint.

McInroy & Wood constantly evaluates new companies that give exposure to interesting themes, new technologies, products or services. We identified Cranswick as an interesting addition to our Smaller Companies Fund in October 2025 as the story started to strengthen, with a greater product range and deepening relationships with customers. Yet an idea alone often is not enough unless you are extremely lucky. It’s possible to name a string of great technologies or ideas that never quite made it, notably Betamax, 3D TV and perhaps Hydrogen engines, to name a few.

For us, a new investment idea has the best chance of success and longevity when corporate culture drives the business. If that culture permeates the company’s DNA, a change occurs: employees and management no longer see their work as simply a job; instead, they see it as a career in the traditional sense and form a deep, lasting connection to the company and its success. This is exactly why Cranswick as an investment remains appealing, the positive culture continues to drive excess returns.

How is this achieved? The simple answer is through persistent hard work. It needs a management team that buys into a straightforward concept: with everyone pushing in the same direction, the business will go much further than it would with one person shouting from the helm. This attitude is embodied and reinforced by the leadership team and trickles across and throughout the organisation. This resonated with McInroy & Wood CEO Wendy Ferguson, who cited our firm’s long-held collegiate investment approach and team orientation as vital to its culture, and explained her management team’s determination to preserve these qualities as the firm grows.

If it’s such hard work, what are the benefits? Research from the Harvard Division of Continuing Education states that ‘companies with a positive workplace culture have higher annual returns.’[i] Such benefits are manifested in clear ways. Greater staff retention, higher levels of skill, greater engagement and idea generation, high levels of trust, and employees that care.

Whilst Cranswick’s management have recognised the need to evolve, they have also been alert to the fact that when operating in more rural areas, a firm can quickly become the largest employer in the region. It is therefore vital to recruit and retain the right staff and to ensure that relevant skills are added, developed and retained within the business.

In recognition of this need, Cranswick has sought to revamp all aspects of its recruitment and employee retention strategy. Introducing graduate programmes, looking at its own skills shortages and introducing training programmes. These address such areas as diversity, ethnicity and inclusion, supporting females joining trade associations such as ‘Meat Women’, amongst other such groupings. It is this attention to detail across all areas of the business that enhances its appeal – why would anyone leave when they are well rewarded and can identify their own strong career path?[ii]

In addition to offering an attractive overall package for employees by matching near-term pay with longer-term share plans, progression and pensions, management are fully cognisant of the need to consider their supply chain in its entirety. The firm’s corporate culture governs its selection and trading relationships with both the farms that supply it and the customers it sells to.

Buyers from the likes of Tesco, Sainsbury and McDonalds are as much interested in this as they are in the price of goods. A buyer wants to sleep soundly knowing products are of the highest quality and supply chains are robust. Cranswick’s appreciation of this dynamic may be reflected in Sainsburys decision to sign a 10-year supply contract with them - a groundbreaking length of agreement in the industry.

Managing livestock isn’t without risk, of course, and consolidating numerous smaller operators in recent years has raised issues, notably regarding animal welfare. However, the problems Cranswick have inherited have been dealt with quickly and effectively. Training has elevated standards, on-site CCTV has driven accountability, and recruitment has been undertaken to accelerate change. These steps, amongst others, have ensured that animal welfare standards swiftly returned to the very highest level for which Cranswick is known.

The relationship with the City has also been important to management. By ensuring their story is well known and accurate, they have enabled proper scrutiny of the business. It has come to be reflected in an accurate valuation. But it is also essential for employees who may be concerned about their jobs, share options, shareholdings and prospects in the business.

Recognising that long-term success is a continuous and evolutionary process is vital to securing a company’s future. Furthermore, the deep organisational engagement and thorough disclosure practiced by firms like Cranswick, create a powerful benchmark against which we can evaluate other investments. Cranswick has set a standard of operational excellence for others to emulate, or at the very least to strive for.

Engaging with the senior management team of the companies in which we invest is an essential part of both initial selection and longer-term monitoring. Mark Bottomley and the management at Cranswick is no exception and we are very grateful to him for taking part in our discussion and for sharing a powerful story of success right on our doorstep!

Nothing in this article should be deemed to constitute the provision of financial, investment or other professional advice in any way. This article reflects McInroy & Wood’s opinions at the date of publication only, the opinions are subject to change without notice, and McInroy & Wood shall bear no liability for any loss arising from reliance on them.

[i] https://professional.dce.harvard.edu/blog/why-workplace-culture-matters/

[ii] https://s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/cranswick-2021/Cranswick-AR25_Spreads.pdf