Ben Burgess is a leading supplier of agricultural equipment in East Anglia and the East Midlands, working with manufacturers to provide the local farming community with quality machinery.

Ben B Turner, Director and Dealer Principal at Ben Burgess, talks to us about the innovation he sees from the manufacturers he works with and how this is making a big difference to the farmers using these machines. 

The company has three depots in Lincolnshire: Holbeach, Swineshead and Old Leake. Making it perfectly placed to support the UK Food Valley. 

A key priority for the UK Food Valley is to accelerate food chain automation and digital technology adoption to deliver productivity growth. By supplying innovative, efficient machinery to the Greater Lincolnshire and Rutland food sector, Ben Burgess is playing a vital role in helping the UK Food Valley achieve this goal. 

“Agriculture is undergoing a huge technological revolution,” says Ben, “and we need to keep up to provide our customers with a service that is in line with the advances in technology. 

“This is why continuing to innovate and digitise our business is essential. It helps support us as we grow, enables our customers to do what they do best and lets us develop best practice.” 

The company was founded in 1931 and had a focus on innovation since the beginning. The first franchise Ben Burgess worked with, Marshall Tractors, was manufacturing diesel tractors when other companies were still producing petrol ones. 

At the time diesel was more ideally suited for machines like tractors than petrol, as it provided high power at lower speeds, was more fuel efficient and most importantly had lower CO2 emissions.  

In 1963, Ben Burgess was appointed as one of the first John Deere dealers in the UK, a company that states its purpose is to ‘innovate on behalf of humanity’.  

Some examples of innovation at John Deere include the manufacturing of fully and semi-autonomous tractors and sprayers, investing in alternative energy and designing electric powered machinery and even using artificial intelligence to distinguish between weeds and crops. 

Ben said: “John Deere is as much a technology company as a manufacturing firm. The technology in the machines makes them more precise, efficient and economic.” 

Ben Burgess now works with over 20 franchises, including John Deere, and employs over 330 people. 

“Our other franchises we sell are also constantly improving products to make them better for the customer and for the planet. They are always working on solutions for marginal gains for the customer to achieve better efficiency levels.” 

Alongside working with manufacturers focused on innovation, Ben Burgess focuses on innovation internally and is constantly improving its services because of this. 

When asked about the importance of innovation, Ben says: “We take any opportunity to offer our customers solutions to help them operate more sustainably, which is vital in this current time.  

“We do this through implementing smart solutions, integrating technology and supporting our customers over the lifetime of their machines.” 

One example of these smart solutions is that Ben Burgess has appointed 12 Precision Agricultural Specialists across the dealership to help implement smart farming technology. These specialists are responsible for assisting customers with fleet optimisation, technology integration and troubleshooting.  

“We have introduced roles into the company to support innovation, including our Agricultural Specialists who not only help implement technology but also help customers understand the data coming from their machines,” says Ben. 

“We also have Service Advisors who call up customers when their machine needs maintenance and advise customers on predicted faults based on algorithms to reduce machine down time as much as possible for our customers.” 

The company also proactively develops machine parts to ensure customers have the parts that they might need over the season.  

Ben Burgess’s vision is ‘to be the leader in the industry by offering excellent customer experiences and an inspiring place to work’ and it is achieving this through investing in innovative new technologies and working with like-minded manufacturers.