Clydesdale Bank helps Norfolk vegetable company continue to grow

11/10/2011

One of the UK’s leading food manufacturers has secured more than £3m of business banking facilities, marking a new era in the next stage of its business development, after it switched bank for the first time in more than 50 years.

Alfred G Pearce Ltd, located in Kings Lynn, decided to switch more than 20 accounts to Clydesdale Bank, including traditional overdraft facilities, loan and asset finance, as well as business internet banking and private individual accounts.

Simon Pearce, Director at Alfred G Pearce Ltd, said: “The transfer to Clydesdale Bank marks a new era for us, as it’s the first time since our father founded the company 52 years ago that the business has changed banks. It is exciting times for us and we were looking for a banking relationship that matched our own success criteria, so Clydesdale Bank was the obvious choice.”

Martin Guildford, Managing Partner at Clydesdale Bank’s Cambridgeshire Financial Solutions Centre, said: “At Clydesdale Bank we are proud of our traditional relationship banking approach and this is something Alfred G Pearce has appreciated. This is a great business for the Bank to be involved with, one which has gone from a small vegetable cleaning business in the Fens to being a global concern with links across Europe, Asia and the Southern hemisphere. We now look forward to helping them reach the next level.”

Alfred G Pearce was originally founded in 1959 to service the needs of the canning industry. It has now developed and grown into a fully integrated operation involved in growing, processing and marketing vegetables for food manufacturers in the UK and Europe. The company handles over 70,000 tonnes of produce annually and was recently listed in the Sunday Telegraph as one of Britain’s brightest 1,000 businesses.

The business employs over 70 people and has a current annual turnover rapidly approaching £20m.