How to create
a £5m business by making an upmarket potato chip down on the farm.
By Fiona McLelland
Herefordshire farmer William Chase became disillusioned with the industry after selling potatoes to the multiples for 20 years. The focus, he believed, had turned to price and aesthetics, at the expense of taste; if the spud was cheap, smooth and round, everything was fine. By the late 1990s, however, Chase was hungry to do something different.
He chose to put his knowledge of potatoes to the test and persuaded Ian Parkinson, who had been running his own haulage business for the past 13 years, to help him establish Tyrrells Potato Chips.
Chase says: “I had been searching for different ideas. I looked at the competition in crisps and thought I could make a better product.”
That was the beginning of a steep learning curve, which involved trips to the States to study the potato chip business, sourcing frying and packaging machinery, learning the legalities of food production and above all putting the hours in at the fryer to create the right product.
The first batch of hand-fried Tyrrells chips were sent out in July 2002, and Chase suffered while he awaited the response. “I was very worried that first week. It’s a feeling I will never forget,” he says. “But I was astounded by the interest and have never looked back.” The first two years’ sales targets exceeded expectations and the company now has a turnover of £5.5m. Tyrrells chips are sold in independent shops, farm stores, and upmarket department stores and the largest customer is Waitrose. Chase claims that other supermarkets have tried very hard to get Tyrrells on to their shelves, but he prefers to keep his crisps exclusive.
The success is down to three things, he says: the quality of the product, the packaging and the story. “People are buying into the lifestyle. Having grown potatoes for supermarkets for 20 years, I used to think consumers were not interested in where food came from. But they really like the history of Tyrrells and that our product is home-grown, from seed to chip.”
Clever marketing on the packaging makes the most of this appeal. Each packet informs the customer that it’s not unusual for a potato to be dug in the morning and cooked up into chips on the farm by lunchtime.
Chase started with five flavours but is constantly coming up with new tastes. The jalapeno, chilli & lemon, cider vinegar and sea salt, and Cheddar cheese flavours are just some of the products that have won Tyrrells prestigious awards.
The bestseller, Parsnips, which won the gold award at the Great Taste Awards 2003, was an accidental invention, as Chase explains: “There were a few parsnips lying at the bottom of a box of potatoes and we decide to put them in the fryer and see what happened. We’re now famous for our parsnips and because they were such a success, we started putting in other roots, like carrots and beetroot.” He is also experimenting with exotic fruit and veg.
Not everything Chase has touched turns to gold. In the attempt to be self-sufficient, he decided to produce his own sunflower oil. When a magnificent crop of sunflowers grew last year, he thought he was on to a winner, but the great British summer this year put a dampener on the scheme.
Chase has a passion for his chips and believes that much more can be done with the brand. Despite turning down the advances of the big UK retailers, he is keen to expand and is looking abroad. Already strong sales on the continent account for a third of the company’s turnover, but he is aiming to increase exports.
“We have to keep reinventing ourselves,” says Chase. “We are in such a competitive market that if we sit still, someone will overtake us.”
a £5m business by making an upmarket potato chip down on the farm.
By Fiona McLelland
Herefordshire farmer William Chase became disillusioned with the industry after selling potatoes to the multiples for 20 years. The focus, he believed, had turned to price and aesthetics, at the expense of taste; if the spud was cheap, smooth and round, everything was fine. By the late 1990s, however, Chase was hungry to do something different.
He chose to put his knowledge of potatoes to the test and persuaded Ian Parkinson, who had been running his own haulage business for the past 13 years, to help him establish Tyrrells Potato Chips.
Chase says: “I had been searching for different ideas. I looked at the competition in crisps and thought I could make a better product.”
That was the beginning of a steep learning curve, which involved trips to the States to study the potato chip business, sourcing frying and packaging machinery, learning the legalities of food production and above all putting the hours in at the fryer to create the right product.
The first batch of hand-fried Tyrrells chips were sent out in July 2002, and Chase suffered while he awaited the response. “I was very worried that first week. It’s a feeling I will never forget,” he says. “But I was astounded by the interest and have never looked back.” The first two years’ sales targets exceeded expectations and the company now has a turnover of £5.5m. Tyrrells chips are sold in independent shops, farm stores, and upmarket department stores and the largest customer is Waitrose. Chase claims that other supermarkets have tried very hard to get Tyrrells on to their shelves, but he prefers to keep his crisps exclusive.
The success is down to three things, he says: the quality of the product, the packaging and the story. “People are buying into the lifestyle. Having grown potatoes for supermarkets for 20 years, I used to think consumers were not interested in where food came from. But they really like the history of Tyrrells and that our product is home-grown, from seed to chip.”
Clever marketing on the packaging makes the most of this appeal. Each packet informs the customer that it’s not unusual for a potato to be dug in the morning and cooked up into chips on the farm by lunchtime.
Chase started with five flavours but is constantly coming up with new tastes. The jalapeno, chilli & lemon, cider vinegar and sea salt, and Cheddar cheese flavours are just some of the products that have won Tyrrells prestigious awards.
The bestseller, Parsnips, which won the gold award at the Great Taste Awards 2003, was an accidental invention, as Chase explains: “There were a few parsnips lying at the bottom of a box of potatoes and we decide to put them in the fryer and see what happened. We’re now famous for our parsnips and because they were such a success, we started putting in other roots, like carrots and beetroot.” He is also experimenting with exotic fruit and veg.
Not everything Chase has touched turns to gold. In the attempt to be self-sufficient, he decided to produce his own sunflower oil. When a magnificent crop of sunflowers grew last year, he thought he was on to a winner, but the great British summer this year put a dampener on the scheme.
Chase has a passion for his chips and believes that much more can be done with the brand. Despite turning down the advances of the big UK retailers, he is keen to expand and is looking abroad. Already strong sales on the continent account for a third of the company’s turnover, but he is aiming to increase exports.
“We have to keep reinventing ourselves,” says Chase. “We are in such a competitive market that if we sit still, someone will overtake us.”
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