Where there’s Muck, there’s Brass
Farming family rely on Ulrich Attachments to optimise food production.
The phrase “Where there’s muck, there’s brass,” is certainly ringing true for the Broster farming family.
For bespoke High Tip buckets from Ulrich Attachments have helped the Greater Manchester Red Tractor Assured business transform its personal need for home-grown compost into a hugely successful commercial enterprise that truly delivers a circular economy.
Patriarch Dave Broster, who has farmed 2,500 acres within a 10-mile radius of their Warrington home since 1977, gained planning permission to turn a former railway cutting on their farmland into a large-scale compost production facility, and has now also invested in a second site at Todmorden where they process organic materials from Manchester and its suburbs.
He can trace the waste from initial collection through to compost production and even to the specific field and crop it is used on. The corn and wheat are then sold to millers, food producers and bakeries in Manchester and the north-west.
Dealing with the increase in compost production has resulted in the need to increase the fleet of machinery to carry out the work. There are currently eight wheeled loaders in operation over the two sites, which allow material to be accepted daily.
At their Warrington site they run four Doosan and Develon wheeled loaders, a Hitachi excavator, and the most recent additions to the fleet are 2 Develon DL380-7 wheel loaders sourced from Blue Machinery (Central).
Dave said: “We take the loaders with a high-lift arm option as it makes it easier and safer to load our walking floor trailers with material and have specified them all with Ulrich High Tip buckets to increase capacity and production.”
The company has run its wheel loaders with the Ulrich buckets for many years but due to the increasing demands of the job, they wanted to see if there was a way of making them even more resilient. They discussed the issue with the Dealer Blue Machinery (Central) and Ulrich and the manufacturer’s design engineering team created a bespoke solution – they named Broster bucket!
This is a significantly next level version of Ulrich’s standard High Tip design which includes, an increased toe-plate and side profiles, additional welding, larger pins, and the option to attach it to the central greasing system.
“So we ordered three!” said Dave. “We have taken delivery of the first one and its performing exceptionally well, with little to no wear on any part of the bucket, which is exactly what we want.”
Ulrich sales director Josh Copeland said: “Brosters have been a valued customer for many years and yes, their buckets do get a lot of use and work in a tough environment, so when Dave was in discussion with Blue Central over some new machines, so together with Blue Central’s sales representative Simon Ashcroft we undertook a site survey to understand the environment and application the machines are working in, and to discuss with Dave and his team what he was looking for.
“We then fed back Daves requirements to our in-house design engineering team, which enabled them to come up with a bespoke design that would increase the bucket’s strength and ease of operation, plus add even more longevity. The design was agreed by Dave and the first one was manufactured and delivered to site within the agreed timeframe and the feedback on how its performing has been very positive”
The new Develon/Ulrich combination has also impressed long-serving operator and farmer Keith Dickenson who originally came to Brosters for a week to ‘help out’ and has been in the seat for more than 17 years, mostly processing incoming material. The additional 525mm given by the high-lift arm arrangement increases the pin height to 4.6m which is again increased with the addition of the 5.5m3 Ulrich bucket.
“The added power of the new loader and the redesigned bucket seems to have made it smoother for me,” he said.
Dave concluded: “It is a constant cycle to produce the significant quantities we need to keep feeding the fields. Whilst our fleet is mixed depending on the operations, we like to stick with what we know and like, and we find that back-up and servicing is more important to us than anything. Both Ulrich and Blue Machinery have been great to deal with. They listen to us and work with us to iron out any issues we have, which is the peace of mind any customer needs from a supplier.”