The familiar blue colour scheme of the Burel Group’s Sulky fertiliser spreaders, power harrows and mounted drills has been dropped, along with the Sulky name itself.

Instead, the entire range of implements produced in the group’s four factories – three in France, one in Italy – will carry the Sky Agriculture brand.

The group’s min-till MaxiDrill and no-till EasyDrill have carried this brand since 2013 when a separate business was formed to focus on the specialist sales and support needed for these products.

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Distributed in Britain by Opico, they will now be turned out in the new graphite grey and titanium white colour scheme, as will Burel’s other products, which are distributed by the group’s own sales and support staff through a separate dealer network.

The change is the culmination of a number of internal initiatives to improve group sales, after-sales and parts operations, says Julien Burel, group chairman, as the business aims to bolster exports from 40% to 50% of revenues, which for the 2022/23 financial year amounted to €85m (£73m).

Group managing director David Guy points out that ‘Sky’ is a shortened version of ‘Sulky’, adding that it is easier to pronounce in some languages; it also simplifies the group’s business and product identities.