Renting Into New Fields - M Metcalfe & Sons
The outbreak of foot and mouth disease in 2001 forced M Metcalfe & Sons to make some drastic changes to their business. But with the addition of some Dig A Crusher and Dig A Screener products, the company hasn’t looked back. Maurice and Gwen Metcalfe came to Silver Hill in Richmond, North Yorkshire as tenants in 1947 and bought the farm in 1982 when it became available. Before the farm was purchased, the husband and wife team realised that the farm wasn’t viable as the family’s sole source of income and formed an agricultural contracting company trading as M Metcalfe and Sons.
The outbreak of foot and mouth disease in 2001, however, had a major impact upon the company’s business. Rather than restocking, the company diversified into green waste recycling. They now shred biodegradable green and wood waste and have made significant inroads into the processing of waste from the food and drink industry.
As agricultural contractors, one of the many diverse tasks undertaken is field stone clearance using a specialist stone picker. The collected rock is then processed using a Dig A Crusher 900 excavator-mounted crusher bucket that crushes the waste down to>25 mm for use as hard-standing.
“We decided to purchase the Dig A Crusher 900 crushing bucket because it was the best tool for the job. It means we can offer a more versatile and comprehensive service to our customers by utilising our existing excavators and simply converting them into mobile on-site crushers in a matter of minutes,” says Martin Metcalfe. “The crushing bucket easily copes with the limestone and we have also used it to process concrete waste. It’s proved to be an excellent and versatile tool, which is why we took special interest in the screening buckets from Dig A Screener.”
Metcalfe reports that the company had long looked at the opportunities offered by soil screening. “This was clearly a business opportunity but we realised that the heavy clay and the wet conditions in our area would require a special attachment to do the job,” Metcalfe continues. “We tried a number of different screening products but they simply weren’t up to the job and we were very disappointed in the results.”
But the offer of a new contract in nearby Pickering, requiring the screening of wet clay spoil, forced Metcalfe and his team to look again for a potential solution. “Rather than try an untried product, we decided to hire a Dig A Screener 700S star screen as Dig A Crusher assured us that it would cope with the difficult materials,” Metcalfe recalls. “It certainly lived up to its claims and it did an excellent good job in very poor conditions with a very wet product. We thought it better to hire the 700S for a decent period to see how it performed. This also allowed us time to adjust the finger settings to get the best end product. Although the screen was hired for a specific job that lasted for a relatively short time, it did give us a chance to evaluate the screen under working conditions. Hiring was certainly a good move and now we have tested it, we’ll be looking to purchase a screen in the near future.”
18th Mar 2009
