If tenacity alone could guarantee success in the UK food and drink sector then Carolyn Creswell, owner of Carman's, one of Australian's best-loved cereal brands, has a bright future ahead of her. When Woolworths, one of Australia's main retailers, delisted her products, Creswell rallied Carman's customers to kick up such a stink that the products were back on shelves within the year. Such chutzpah is typical of the woman who has transformed the tiny muesli business she set up with a friend into a thriving enterprise turning over £10m a year. And now Creswell has her sights on the British market. To fight toe-to-toe with well-established household names such as Weetabix, Alpen and Dorset Cereals, she needed to secure a big deal. And she has - with Sainsbury's. In co-operation with the Australian government, the supermarket mocked up a shop of 400 Australian brands for its buyers to see if any took their fancy. Carman's was one of only five chosen, along with Tim Tams, Darrell Lea licorice, Brown Brothers wine and Gourmet Garden herbs. Last September two of her luxury cereal bars gained listings in Sainsbury's, which is on track to stock the mueslis by the end of the year. "Sainsbury's is a good retailer where we can build our story and use it as a springboard," says Creswell. "It is hard to break the UK, because there is such brilliant competition, so we want to build gradually and get a strong customer base." Two of her classic and fruit-free mueslis were also trialled in Asda last December and negotiations are under way to widen distribution. Boots, meanwhile, has approached Carman's with a view to stocking its apricot and almond cereal bars. Creswell is also targeting whole food shops and has signed a distribution deal with Suma Wholefoods. The journey has only just begun for Creswell, who is still acclimatising herself to the UK market. Speak to any Australian and they are likely to wax lyrical about Carman's. The company's website is inundated with fan mail and Creswell has become something of a celebrity in her home city of Melbourne, so it has been hard to start afresh in Britain, she admits. "It feels like I have gone from being really popular to having no friends. We show the retailers our sales data from other countries and try to get our story across but it is hard. We would love to get into Waitrose and Tesco but we understand this is going to take time. We need to get our products through the tills at Sainsbury's, so people will tell their friends about us." Once the brand has been properly established, which Creswell expects to take a couple of years, she forecasts sales of £5m in the UK. But she is under no illusions about the scale of the challenge. She acknowledges that with food miles rising up the consumer agenda, the company has to tread carefully as far as PR goes. On the one hand, Creswell wants to talk up her brand's provenance, yet on the other she doesn't want to alienate environmentally aware consumers. To overcome this, packaging states that the products come from Australia, but highlight the fact that they are sent by sea. "It's a double-edged sword," she says. "In Australia the homegrown idea is a strong marketing tool but the carbon footprint is important in the UK, which is why we tell them it's shipped rather than flown." The Australian connection, she believes, gives the brand a USP thanks to connotations the country has with clean, natural products. With many British brands already fighting for space on the breakfast fixture, this could be invaluable. Carman's can compete with brands such as Dorset Cereals on price, despite the distance her products travel because Australia imports more products than it exports, making it cheap to backfill cargo ships, she says. In fact, it is cheaper for the company to send its products overseas to Singapore - some 3,800 miles away - than it is to transport them overland to Perth, less than half the distance away. These will be key factors if Carman's is going to succeed in the UK, but Creswell's unflinching belief in her business will also be critical. "Success won't happen for us overnight," she says. "But it will happen. We can't afford to fail." n Want us to profile your company? Call Stefan Chomka on 01293 610253



History Carman's was established in 1992 after the small bakery in Hawksburn, Victoria, that Caroyln Creswell worked at was put up for sale. Creswell and a colleague, Manya van Aken, put up $1,000 each to buy the business and the muesli brand Carman's, named after the first three letters of their names, was born. Two years later van Aken sold her share in the business, leaving Creswell as the sole owner. Lines: Original breakfast bars - 270g Classic fruit bars - 270g Apricot and almond muesli bars - 270g Untoasted muesli - 500g Fruit-free muesli - 500g Classic muesli - 500g Delux fruit muesli - 500g Traditional oats - 500g UK listings: Asda and Sainsbury's Products are also available through Suma Wholefoods Global listings: Coles, Woolworths, Whole Foods Market, Quantas Airlines NPD in the pipeline: Bagged snacks, savoury crackers, organic muesli