Animals
Business
Crops
Environment
Food
General
Horticulture
Livestock
Machinery
Markets
Politics
Login
 
 
 
Submit to register and subscribe
(72,60 € / year)
 
I forgot my password
Next articleVolgend Artikel

 23 nov 2012 12:25 

Charlie Fermor begins exporting them around the world and is set to net £1million


Most people go to university and end up spending a fortune - not making one.
But a farmer's son from Kent has done just that after he started developing unique fruit crisps in his university digs and is now exporting them around the world.
Charlie Fermor has now sold more than one million packets of his healthy snack made from apples and pears.

The 25-year-old has taken orders for 100,000 packs from Australia, 40,000 from China and 10,000 from the UAE, with the business set to net him over a million pounds in 2013.

Charlie began experimenting with making the fruit crisps - the only ones of their kind in the UK - while studying agricultural business management at university in Reading.
He turned his student accommodation into a makeshift lab and bought a dehydrator device to dry out slices of the fruit as he experimented with apples in between lectures.

He has so far refused to supply British supermarkets because of issues with pricing, preferring to build up relationships with smaller retailers.
 
'There was a spare in my university house in my last year there so thought experimenting in making the crisps would be a good way of making some use of it.' he said.

'I had some mixed results to begin with but it turned out quite well.

'We have had a lot of interest in the fruit crisps.

'We are making the product ourselves, which is increasingly rare, and that’s something we pride ourselves on.

'There has been a great response to what we have done and we can’t really keep up with demand at the moment.

'We’ll continue to target new markets, that’s what we are doing with exporting the crisps to other countries as well as getting them into the schools.

'But at this stage we are avoiding the supermarkets and looking out for smaller retailers.'

After finishing his degree at the University of Reading in 2008, Charlie used his newfound knowledge to develop his brand of crisps at Perry Court Farm, near Ashford, Kent.

He visited famous American fruit-growing states such as Oregon and California to learn about processing techniques.

Returning to the UK Charlie used some savings to buy his own equipment and set up production in an on-site cold store on the farm using the apples from the orchards.
 
That was when the business really started to take off and Charlie hasn’t looked back since.

After a trade show six months ago more and more retailers from countries across the globe are now getting in touch with Perry Court Farm about the tasty crisps.

The global chain Whole Foods Market snapped up the snacks for their five London shops as well as many other smaller retailers across the country.

The tasty crisps, which sell for 50 pence a pack, have proved popular with school tuck shops, as one packet counts as one of your five-a-day.



  Newsflash