Following a demonstration and competitive tendering process, the business recently bought eight new John Deere 5080GF 80hp fruit tractors on a John Deere Financial deal from Kent dealer Burden Bros Agri Ltd of Stockbury, with additional PowerGard Protection & Maintenance cover.

Based near Canterbury in east Kent, Newmafruit Farms Ltd and Newmafruit International Ltd manage over 526ha (1300ac) of orchard and soft fruit production, with extensive warehousing, storage and packing facilities. The company handles over 60,000 tonnes of product a year, the majority of which consists of 26 varieties of apple and six of pear, plus cherries, plums and soft fruit.

"Continuously improving our operation is a key driver for our business, whether by investment in people, facilities, equipment or processes," says Newmafruit managing director Tony Frankham. "We've had maintenance problems with some of our tractors in the past, and when we decided to upgrade part of the fleet we wanted to avoid any unnecessary service and maintenance costs as far as possible. We were therefore looking for robust tractors with overall build quality and reliable service back-up from the dealer.

"We had looked at previous John Deere tractor models, and they appeared to be good machines, but we felt that they were relatively expensive. Generally, the perception was that John Deere was more of an arable tractor, rather than designed specifically for fruit production.

"However, there's no point in having a cheaper tractor if the service costs are higher, you have constant problems and the after-sales service is poor - all of these things are important factors. John Deere and the dealer, Burden Bros Agri, ultimately proved that they had the right product for us, available at a competitive cost with finance, and with good, reliable dealer back-up. The PowerGard package also helped seal the deal as a means of managing our overall fleet costs more effectively."