Perry of Oakley started life when Tom Perry converted a car into a travelling workshop for on-farm machinery repairs. This was back in 1947 and it was a modest beginning.

A farmer’s son who was previously an engineer in the RAF, Tom modified the family’s Austin 12 car by fitting a workbench and welding equipment in place of the back seat. The car also carried tools plus the tent Tom slept in when travelling away from home.

The repair service quickly expanded to include new equipment which he designed and built on the family farm at Oakley, Basingstoke, Hampshire. It was a time when sacks were being replaced by bulk handling and storage, and Tom had a special interest in grain equipment.

In 1949 he designed and built the first Perry belt and bucket elevator with 5 tonnes/hr throughput plus a grain cleaner equipped with mechanical sieves and aspiration to remove dust and light rubbish.

Machinery production expanded during the 1950s to include trailers, buckrakes, jog-trough conveyors plus equipment to help protect drivers of cabless combines from dust. To accommodate the increased output the Perry business moved into a 40ft by 60ft factory at Oakley in 1952, and when this became inadequate there was another move to a new factory at Oakley in 1974.

The firm’s first continuous-flow grain drier was an important milestone in 1955. Grain drying equipment became a major part of the Perry range and also helped establish its export business. Weighing hoppers, grain elevators and a large range of conveyors were added by 1990 when the business had once more outgrown its factory space.

This time the company, now run by Tom’s son Nigel, moved away from Oakley to a new factory near Honiton, Devon. In spite of the long-distance move, a connection with the firm’s original home remains through the Perry of Oakley name.

After the move to Devon, the company’s expansion continued in the UK and overseas. It remains family controlled and the managing director since 2007 has been David Perry, the third generation of his family to run the business. The company now offers a full range of grain drying and handling equipment, all UK designed and manufactured.

Its most successful products include levelling conveyors for grain store filling. These provide level, uncompacted filling to make full use of storage capacity, especially in low, wide buildings without using a grain pusher. Its continuous flow grain driers with 8 to 100tph capacity are also popular and so are mechanical intake pits. Below-ground installation of the pits allows trucks and trailers to tip their load and then drive straight over the pits, which have levers controlling the grain flow.

Although agricultural sales still dominate the business, about 30% of demand is from non-farming customers for handling grain, animal feed and a wide range of other materials. Waste recycling is an important growth market with Perry equipment handling materials such as sawdust, wood chip, rubber waste, glass, compost and reclaimed plastic.