The Pioneer interview with... Mark Aitchison

Can you grow a business by putting customers and collegues first?

Mark Aitchison has revolutionised farming and finance, growing a £2 billion business in the process.

Farmers have it hard. Under pressure from the weather, from pests and disease, from huge supermarkets, from subsidy reductions, from new environmental rules and costs… and it can be lonely work across long hours, weeks and years. 

Farmers can be hard to do business with too. Farms vary greatly in size and situation, farmers vary in mindset and approach. They need to think long-term about land, but short-term about making a living, as each year takes on a different shape.  

It matters too. We need them to secure good, affordable food for the nation while protecting nature and the countryside. 

Mark Aitchison set up Frontier Agriculture in 2005, it’s now a circa £2bn business. His approach to farmers, and the secret of his success, is the way they are genuinely customer, or farmer, led.  

The business is centred on crops, buying from farmers, and marketing and selling to crop processors, in ways that work well for the producers and, through quality and security of supply, for the users too. 

On top of that, they advise farmers on crop production, varieties to grow and how to do it well, increasingly a data-rich pursuit. Their culture is service-led and full of pride, from truck drivers to traders. 

Their latest initiative is an investment in a challenger bank for UK agriculture. Oxbury was set up in 2021 to provide the food and farming industries with the funding and support that they need, an agricultural fintech. Building on Frontier’s relationships with farmers, the bank became profitable just two years later. 

Earlier this year, Mark handed the Frontier Agriculture reins to Diana Overton as he moved to a Group Chair role.

Q: You've led Frontier Agriculture for an impressive 20 years. Could you share a bit about your background and what brought you to that point?  

Believe it or not, I'm a Scouser at heart, born and bred in Walton, Liverpool – a pretty vibrant, shall we say, urban area. My path to agriculture wasn't exactly traditional! I'm actually a biologist by training. I have a biology degree followed by a postgraduate qualification in agronomy and crop husbandry. So, at my core, I understand how things grow. I entered the industry in the mid-80s as an agronomist, working for a private firm in Lincolnshire, and honestly, I just loved it. 

I loved walking the fields, I loved growing crops and the closeness with farmers. And being close to it is an important part of being successful and advising farmers how to be successful.  

What makes farming fascinating is that it's biology, which means it's constantly changing. No season is the same. In most businesses, the environment becomes predictable, but in agriculture, it's very unpredictable. Understanding that and being able to respond to it is an important part of being successful in agriculture. 

Q: How did you move from being an agronomist to being in business? 

As I became a successful agronomist with lots of customers, I wanted to get into management. I eventually joined Cargill, who had bought Unilever's agricultural business in the UK. 

At the time, Cargill was a commodity trading company – very transactional, very intelligent, but very much a trader. I joined them as a service expert who'd been working closely with farmers, and suddenly I was in this commodity trading culture where it was all about transactions. I thought I'd made a big mistake, but decided to stay and see if I could change the environment. I wanted to prove to Cargill that being customer-focused and understanding customers' challenges would actually make the company more successful. 

Gradually I took over half the sales force, then the whole sales force, then became commercial director because it was performing better. Then one day they asked if I'd like to be managing director of the company. 

Q: Was there a defining moment that shaped your approach? 

I remember telling Cargill that agriculture is a people business, and they said, "The trouble with you, Mark, is you're just a romantic." I replied, "No, I'm not. I'm a biologist." 

The reason it's a people business is that every season, every farm, every field, every set of circumstances is different because it's biology, and it’s well-trained expert people with knowledge and wisdom that can make decisions that can eliminate biological variability. Understanding that we need to listen to our customers and recognise these differences is the secret to our success. 

I was educating Cargill that agriculture was a people business, and that your ability to be good with customers, understand them, listen to them, and be invaluable to them was fundamental to success in this industry. 

Q: What were some of the brave decisions you made along the way? 

I told Cargill we needed to do certain things if they wanted to go on a journey to make this the number one company in the industry. At that point, we had about 2% market share and were making no money. Today, we're the most profitable, most successful, largest, and most respected business in the industry with 25-30% market share, making £50 million (EBIT). 

One big step was acquiring Banks Agriculture in 2001. The brave decision was that I said to Cargill, "I'd like to go off balance sheet as a standalone limited company." I wanted our own assets, balance sheet, independent financing, systems, culture and HR policies so I could develop a business with the values I believed were important for connecting with farmers. 

My boss at Cargill said, "When you tell your parents you don't want to be with them, you better be successful because they're not going to like you if you don't succeed." It was a fair warning! 

The next brave move came after three successful years when we merged with Allied Grain, owned by Associated British Foods or ABF, in 2005 to create Frontier Agriculture. I became managing director reporting to joint owners Cargill and ABF. I held that position for 20 years until January 2025. 

Q: How has Frontier Agriculture grown over this time? 

When we started, Frontier had a turnover of £500 million, employed 500 people, and made £7 million operating profit. 

In 2025, Frontier turns over £1.75 billion, employs 1,100 people, and makes £50 million. So in that 20-year period, we've trebled the size of the company and increased profitability sevenfold. 

For me, it's all about the culture and values of the company and making the business really good with customers. Yes, there are clever commercial aspects – our balance sheet strength is phenomenal, and we agreed with shareholders not to pay dividends for the first 10 years to build up our financial capacity. But at the heart of the business has been our ability to connect well with our customers. 

Q: How would you describe the culture you've built? 

We created a set of values we refer to as "ICE": Integrity, Customer First and Expertise. Everyone in the company, whether they're lorry drivers, forklift operators, traders, salespeople, agronomists, or administrators – all 1,100 know these values. We have ICE awards to recognise them. 

By Integrity, we mean running a respect-based organisation where everyone is equally valued. When we say we're going to do something, we mean it. When we shake hands, it means something. We're decent, honest, trustworthy people in everything we do. 

Customer First means remembering we're fundamentally a service business. We don't have a lot of unique IP or manufacture many things. We're interpreters, service providers, logisticians, traders. We give advice to farmers on growing crops using our knowledge. 

If you're a service organisation, it's not about what you do, it's about how you do it. It's about behaviour, culture, values, and how you perform in front of the customer. That's what you're judged on and how you make your money. 

Q: How do you empower your people to deliver great customer service? 

We descend decision-making authority to the lowest point in the business. Many large companies keep big decisions high up in the organisation, but customers want decisions made quickly and in their interests. 

Giving authority to people who interface with customers allows them to deliver a great experience. If a customer asks when you're going to collect or deliver something, what the price is, or how many items are available, they don't want to hear "I'll get back to you." They want answers now. 

That takes courage – having the confidence to give people the authority to make decisions on behalf of the customer. If that authority is held up in the organisation, no one benefits. 

Q: The "E" in ICE stands for Expertise. How do you develop that? 

I learned a long time ago that you don't make money being next-year's expert. Being really good at what you do, not average, adding value, making a difference – these are very important. 

We're invested in our people. They're well-educated, well-trained and experienced. We give them the best products and services we can find. Frontier will acquire the best technology for its agronomists and crop nutrition experts. We'll get the best markets for grain and use our scale to secure exclusive marketing arrangements. 

For example, we're the exclusive supplier of wheat to Warburton's bread. If you like Warburton's bread, it's our wheat that goes into it. 

We also ensure our people have the right assets – all our trucks are new, our sites are professionally invested in and safe, with good equipment. If you say you want to be an expert organisation but give people rusty tools, forget it. You won't achieve it. 

Q: You've talked about Frontier being the UK's biggest agricultural business. How do you make sure you don't come across as remote or inflexible to your customers? 

One of the first things we did when we created Frontier was recognise that anyone who's number one or goes to number one, the customer almost always considers them to be remote, inflexible, and not listening. 

We needed to demonstrate to customers that they could have the power of this new organisation – financially strong, credible, with great services – but receive that through trusted, valuable relationships with individuals. 

So, we created the ‘Faces of Frontier’ initiative where our brand featured 30 people who worked in the business. Their faces were professionally photographed and put on our lorries, buildings, and adverts. We said, ‘Meet the people that make a difference.’ 

What we hadn't anticipated was the tremendous positive vibe this created within the company. People said the leadership of this business is so confident in our ability, they're prepared to make us the brand of the company. Everyone thought this is a place where you can be respected, with high standards. 

Over 20 years, we've featured more than 120 people as the faces of Frontier, and market research shows that farmers recognise Frontier as a people business. Our message has been you can get the power of this company through trusted relationships with people who listen to you. 

Q: That's a very human approach to business. Is that reflected in how you treat your employees as well? 

Absolutely. We're very decent with our people. We’ve supported our staff and we do things right. If you really want to be taken seriously, you need to behave in the way you want to be admired. If you say "these are our values," then you have to live them. The quickest way to get sacked in Frontier is behaving dishonestly or being unsafe. 

We recently had three drivers in Yorkshire who decided to stretch the rules relating to the loaded weight of thier lorries. They knew they were doing it, were told not to, but continued. We sacked all three of them – no messing about. We won't have people flagrantly disregarding safety rules or damaging our reputation. 

Frontier is a lovely company to deal with and well-respected by customers, but it's not soft and fluffy. You don't get the level of respect, success, and financial performance we've achieved without being fiercely committed to what you're doing. 

Q: You've recently handed over leadership after 20 years. How did you approach that transition? 

I've handed over to our previous Group Finance Director, Diana – which is interesting in this male-oriented industry. She's been working with me for ten years and was the other executive director on the main board. 

The board asked if we should look outside for someone to run the company. I said absolutely not. The only person who can run this company is someone who's been in it and understands the culture. 

After 20 years, I've handed over to someone who has been in the company for 10 years and understands the culture and how it works. I would never have handed it to someone from outside the industry because they would come in with their own version of Frontier. 

Diana's taking over, and I've moved into a Group Executive role. I'm still on the main board and helping her without interfering. She's running the senior leadership team while I'm chairing several of our subsidiary businesses. 

ABF, one of our shareholders, did a study on what they call "combination businesses" – organisations with different cultural models within one overarching structure. Frontier was a good example because we have both transactional trading relationships (buying grain) and high-value advisory relationships (agronomy). 

ABF discovered that these combination businesses tend to be more profitable because the complexity brings added value. One of their conclusions was that the worst thing you can do in a combination business is change the CEO every five years, which was their normal practice. 

The success of combination businesses is about understanding the subtleties of what makes them successful. When the CEO leaves, all those subtleties leave with them, destroying value in the company. 

That's why I appointed someone from within who understands the culture. She may not have farming or loads of sales experience, but she's intelligent, understands our culture, can learn, and can define her own way of operating while understanding what has made us successful. 

Q. You’ve also helped set up the first agricultural bank in over 100 years, how did this come about? 

It all started five years ago when a friend approached me with this brilliant idea. He said, "We'd like to set up the first agricultural bank in the UK for 100 years." The concept was all about agility, speed, and excellence with customers – everything the big corporate High Street banks weren't providing. 

These traditional banks have legacy systems, they're poor with customers, don't listen, don't ring you back. They're remote and entitled. Meanwhile, farmers aren't well understood by these corporate banks. I immediately thought, yeah, it's a great idea! I love it and it fits totally with my model and thinking on customer service. 

Q: How did you get the initial funding to start the bank? 

I went to my shareholders at Frontier and said I'd like us to invest in building the first agricultural bank in the UK for 100 years. Cargill told me, "We had a bank in Argentina and the farmers came and burnt the bank down and stole the safe. We're never going to do banking again." ABF said, "We're a grocery business, we own Primark and Twinings – we're not going to do financial services." 

I simply told them, "I would like to change your mind, I think it’s a great idea.” I stuck my neck out, which is something I'm quite used to doing. 

We managed to get the £9 million needed to start building the bank. Even then our CFO warned me, "If this fails, you realise it's going to be bad for you." I said, "Yeah, I think I do." 

Q: So how is Oxbury performing today? 

Five years later, Oxbury Bank has been the fastest to break even in the history of UK banking! It's turning over £2 billion, has 57,000 customers and employs 200 people. It'll make £12 million operating profit next year, and continues to grow. 

We've now raised £170 million, completely avoiding private equity – I don't like guys in shiny pinstripe suits because they're not interested in customers!  

Q: Beyond the financial success, what makes Oxbury special? 

Oxbury Bank is absolutely recognised for being brilliant with customers. We were talking the other day that the brand of the bank should be "we will always ring you back." 

Unlike other banks, we've got 15 area managers that go out on farms and meet farmers, talking to them about their businesses. Our digital systems, developed from scratch, are fantastic – you can bank on your phone or PC. It’s very easy to use and it's just beautiful. 

Farmers are loving it! They're borrowing money from us to buy new tractors, put up new buildings and repair their property. They're buying their crop inputs on a revolving credit facility. On the deposit side, Martin Lewis has been promoting our deposit accounts and bonds because they've been very competitive in the market. 

It's great for farming and great for our P&L – all because I recognised that the banking model needs a customer solution. Oxbury is a beautiful, software-enabled, digitally smart solution for banking, and it's succeeding tremendously well today because it's great to deal with. 

Q: Any final thoughts for business leaders looking to be more customer-led? 

The leader of the company has to be totally committed to the customer if you're going to create that culture and make it work. You can set any values you like, and they might appear customer-centric, but unless you're fierce about making them a reality on the ground, you won't be taken seriously. 

Frontier has gone from being insignificant to number one, and it's all about putting customers at the heart of everything we do. That's an incredible story of business transformation driven by customer focus and Diana will strengthen and develop this further because she understands our unique culture.