From this good start Alston Dairy were selling 30 dozen pots a week to small local shops but this was not going to make sufficient money on a long term basis and Ann’s vision always was to aim for the supermarkets. An appointment with local supermarket EH Booths followed to see the dairy buyer Mr Hunter. Ann went with her tray of yogurts, no briefcase or fancy presentation and asked that he try her product in just 2 stores and if they didn’t sell she wouldn’t bother him again.
Her first order was for 20 dozen and in week 2 another order for 20 dozen followed in week 3 Ann decided to do a tasting in one of the shops, over the Thursday, Friday/Saturday she sold 1000 pots in the Lancaster Store and 1200 pots repeating the exercise the following week in the Clitheroe store. Armed with the sales proof she then returned to the buyer and got listings in another 2 stores and within 6 months they were supplying all the Booths stores (24 at the time).
In 1980, Bolton Fold Farm came up for sale. The opportunity to actually own their farmland and house was too good an opportunity for Ann to pass up despite the fact that the interest rates were at 18% and their costs would move from £660 per year in rent to a mortgage of £1,360 per month.
Ann opened the post one February morning and there was a leaflet advertising a 1 day yogurt making course at Hutton College, Preston.
If luck had sent Ann the leaflet on yogurt making it also ensured that the one and only time there was a British food exhibition in Preston it was held that summer. Ann was persuaded this would be the ideal show case for her yogurts but currently there wasn’t a saleable product, a brand or any marketing materials, all the things that usually go with launching a new product. The lack of money and short timelines led to her taking photos from around the farm for the marketing leaflets.
One other slight hiccup was finding out that the paddle wasn’t working in the 30 gallons of milk that were making the yogurt for the show so she had to get into the vat to scoop it all out!
Ann’s practical approach led to making use of what was available so a small farm outhouse was turned into an incubating room at incredible speed, a boiler was purchased on HP and the 10,000 pots of yogurt for the exhibition were filled by hand.
The combination of all of these did lead to fantastic publicity in the Lancashire Evening Post in the lead up to the exhibition which certainly helped get her noticed and led to her selling all of the 10,000 pots.
From here Alston Dairy went from strength to strength with listings in James Hall – Spar (one of the largest wholesalers in the area) and moving into the food service wholesalers. Success was not easy though. In the early days Ann would be wheeling the churns and stacking the yogurt for the next day by hand at 11 O’clock at night, every night. There were challenges along the way.
A meeting with their bankers led to the proposal that they should sell some of the land and 40 of the herd to help solve some of the financial challenges they were facing. Ann was not prepared to do that, seeing selling your way out as a slippery slope downwards, and actually she needed to find a way to generate more revenue.
As a result of that determination, the bank gave her another 6 months. Ann, her husband Edward and her sons Stephen and Neil, who provided great support to Ann through the many challenges along the way, discussed on maximising the number of cows in calf and led to the accolade from the bank manager 6 months later, ‘Ann, Edward and Sons, you have done the impossible’.
Following a period of growth, Ann pushed forward to expand the business and a purpose-built dairy was completed. Creating additional space and capacity to further grow yogurt sales.
Ann entered her yogurts into the prestigious Nantwich show, winning rosettes for championship yogurts for 7 years in a row.
