I like the message on the Callestick website to frozen food distributors “Frozen Food Distributors who are still buying and selling produce on price alone are being left behind. Offering bland, mass-market ice cream just won’t do – end customers are now demanding high quality, pure and natural ice creams in exciting flavours, made with only the finest ingredients and using time-honoured methods. Are you offering what they want?”. It is quite a call to action. Doble Quality Food only supplies the best, obviously!
Callestick can produce over 5,000 litres of ice-cream a day so that takes some eating. However there is a little information on the owners – it is interesting to see how different each website is. I wonder how this very impressive growth has been funded and how and why they set out to supply the nation rather than keeping to the South West. Did they use a business plan resource and raise outside funding? Of course, the disadvantage of the ice-cream business is that the distribution of the product is so costly whereas the best of Cambridge Cluster products can be delivered down an optical cable to the world.
Whilst St Agnes Bakery supplies the locals in St Agnes, Rowe’s of Penryn has been baking since 1949 and supply Doble Quality Foods and many others with a range of products. Rowe’s has a good website and tells of how the the miners used to hold the pastie by the crust side so not to put their dirty hands on their lunch. The problem office workers have with pasties is the crumbs getting into the computer’s keyboard – no shaking get them out!
“But the growth really began after Bill’s marriage to Phyllis Wallace in 1963.The combination of his baking and her selling skills and drive led to many more shops in neighbouring towns during the 1960s and 70s.” But if Phyllis was so important to the growth of the business why is there only an obituary about Bill on the website? It is all a bit like the Cambridge Cluster with the emphasis on the technology and not the key skill of selling!
I wonder if Phyllis owned any shares in the business or was a director? The world has changed a bit since those days but fortunately for us the Cornish pastie is still the best food for a bracing day on the Cornish coast and thank goodness we do not have to go down the mines to enjoy one! They did not have a business plan resource in those days.
Image via WikipediaThe Cake Tin was “cracked open” from St. Ewe Free Range Eggs by Rebecca Morris starting in their farm kitchen. The cakes have been so successful that baking has moved to farm buildings converted by husband Andy.
The cakes are supplied to the Catering Trade in Cornwall and South Devon by Doble Quality Foods or you can always go direct but why miss a smile from a Doble Quality Foods driver!
St. Ewe has been producing egss for 25 years and the chickens are free to range during the day with eggs collected twice a day.
So a fascinating story of how one family in the Cornish Cluster is diversifying to keep bring us the best food. It must all be done with a helpful bank manager. I wonder if the banks are offering fixed rate loans for ten years at the special rates now available.
Image by aminorjourney via Flickr“Stay in the Game” says my son as KPMG offers staff a four day week or a few weeks holiday. Tempting to take the latter but as we move into unknown territory (when before did KPMG and the like have to make such an offer) it is better to stay at the coal face. At least until you are made an offer you cannot refuse.
Herman Hauser is promoting the cause of the Cambridge Cluster with thousands of jobs and companies at risk as they are unable to raise further rounds of funding. The future of the UK knowledge-based economy could be at risk. The case needs to be made to the government – the Cambridge Cluster is as important as the car and other industries. I hear from Bristol that a company visited VCs in London and found the atmosphere chilling.
Although the banks were supervised by the Bank of England and the Financial Services Authority – what were they doing? - bankers have to take the stick but how come the likes of Applegarth of Northern Rock, Hornby of HBOS and Goodwin (paid £30million over ten years and relaxing with a pension pot of £8.4million) of RBS get away without taking responsibility for their actions. If they had been entrepreneurs they would have lost all their wealth which might have concentrated their minds.
So should we encourage the talent in the Cambridge Cluster to start a business or are they better joining the relatively risk free and highly rewarding career of large companies.
One last thought, we will know we are in a full blown recession when the public sector starts reducing head counts. I guess we have a long way to go. So it is all about chosing the game you want to play and staying at the coal face.
This cluster of food manufacturers is quite different from companies in the Cambridge Cluster. They are family run and controlled companies and many in their second and earlier generations. It is interesting to think about the equity structures of each business as they pass down the generations. All the companies are closely linked to the farming world which has similar problems of passing down ownership of the business.
Whilst Cambridge Cluster companies have ideas which they hope to sell to the world, the products of the Cornish Cluster companies are mainly for local consumption and rely on the customers coming to the South West of England. Transport links have improved over the years but avoid travel on change-over Saturdays in the very busy summer school holidays. The development of Newquay Airport (remember to pay the local tax or you cannot get out) has made it more accessible. You can always take the Cornish Riviera and sleep on the way down in your bunk. It is better for returning to London as you do not have to worry about getting off at your station.
There is a market for the people from the South West who are now scattered round the world and want a Taste of the West for a celebration when the cost of the goods is dwarfed by the cost of transport – but who cares for a precious moment! Logistics can be difficult as it is not good for perishable food to be stuck or lost in transit for a few days.
Cornwall needs to develop other industries and to do so will require a business plan resource.
Of course, the ego of Rich Stein will insist that he put Cornwall on the gormet map and it was just gormand before him. At least you can be sure of a warm and generous welcome from the members of Taste of the West whereas Jasper Gerard, writing in his Your Table is Ready on “Padstein”, comments about the “accusation of arrogance that sniffs the air”. Gerard also comments that Stein “fired the first shot in the Cornish food revolution” – not sure if the people of Kernow agree with that.
Image via WikipediaAn article in the Telegraph Magazine features the luxury Chalet Kernow in Verbier; prices for the chalet which sleeps ten start from £20,000 per week. Beware of the tedious flash in the into. It is astronomic but some weeks have been sold.
Kernow is Cornish for Cornwall from where the owner, investment banker Charlie Berman, hails.Why go to Verbier when you can have so much fun in Cornwall and enjoy the best from Taste of the West. Perhaps Doble Quality Foods can add Verbier to their slogan of Suppliers to the Catering Trade in Cornwall and South Devon.
Let us hope that the Charlie returns to his roots and uses his entrepreneurial flair to bring new life to Cornwall rather than saving the Chez Dany!
Perhaps the article is also featured in the Russian press…….
Interestingly Charlie believes in sharing ownership so it would be interesting to see what business plan resource he uses.
“The essential similarity between what happened 21 centuries ago and what is happening in today’s UK economy is that a massive increase in monetary liquidity culminated with problems in another country causing a credit crisis at home. In both cases distance and over-optimism obscured the risk,” said Kay, a supernumerary fellow at Wolfson College.”
But unfortunately he has not found out the medecine which they had to take but there is a lot of talk about wars.
In December 2008, SnapMyLife raised a “new $5 million round of funding, led by current investors North Bridge Venture Partners and Carmel Ventures“. Also from the press release “SnapMyLife was launched in April, 2008 and has quickly grown to more than 1.5 million unique visitors per month and over 500,000 registered users.” But why would I use SnapMyLife over Facebook?
I wonder what business plan resource SnapMyLife has used and who now owns what? In the UK we could look at the data submitted to Companies House and get some idea of the ownership structure but in the freedom loving USA it is a closed book.
Only pictures of Facebook on Zemanta – perhaps SnapMyLife needs photos on Flickr for us bloggers.
Mixed reviews on the App Store complaining about being slooooow. Need to download and walk and check it out. Hopefully I can make sure photos only uploaded when I return to the Wi-Fi world!
Ooooops! Download the app to my iPhone but it will not let me join – press join and it says that I must have already set my password and username. So back to the website – cann’t be bothered. What else will not work. Frustrating.
Let us hope George Grey has more luck on the other side of The Pond!
And top tags on 11 Jan were (not much about business……):
Image via WikipediaAnother great day at Cambridge Rugby Union Football Club with a win by the 2nds XV at home and news of a win by the top team at Otley. Players who can afford it, go to Core Cambridge – a centre of excellence for injury rehabilitation and the development of athletic performance – to get the body beautiful and keep it that way. First they teach you how to run!
No doubt it produces fitter (in both senses of the words judging by the excited ladies on the touch-line) but we old soaks remember the busy bars and companionship after the match particularly when you were paired for a drinking game with your oponent with whom you had recently been exchanging “hand-bags”. Now the supporters leave early and the clubhouse is hired out for weddings and wakes – not too many of the latter on a Saturday evening, fortunately.
Image via WikipediaCallestick Farm dairy ice cream was started in 1989 and has grown quickly supplying over 600 customers including Doble Quality Foods – Suppliers to Caterers in Cornwall and South Devon. One look at the Callestick website and you can taste that delicious ice crea – Oh! the calories!![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=2adaa2ee-c7f2-4811-9ff5-adf791353fdc)
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