John Mudd Blog

My name is John Mudd and I want to start a blog, to share my experiences with others who may find them useful. Firstly I’ll give you some background. At the end of the background I am happy to offer advice to anyone who needs it on a range of subjects from writing a business plan, organising a sales team, running a business, training sales personnel, setting and achieving objectives, costing product production, general business advice and any matter you will learn from reading my blog and my experiences.

I started my selling career selling pies and sausages for Bowyers, selling from a van to existing customers. My boss there was a guy called Peter Sylvester. Peter left Bowyers and went to work at McVities Cakes and he pretty soon recruited me to join him there as a van salesman, selling cakes.

Eventually I left McVities, and I don’t recall why. I remained unemployed for two weeks, then an old colleague from McVities, Gordon Vokes, rang me to ask if I wanted two weeks work with Smiths Crisps to cover his holidays. I was interested, so I went to meet the area manager, Howard James, who offered me two weeks work, cash in hand to cover for Gordon, and I did.

After two weeks Howard told me I was selling more in that two weeks than Gordon was selling, so he offered me a full time job, replacing a guy he had to get rid of. I accepted the job offer and thus started my 36 years in the Crisps industry. It was 16^th October 1972.

I took over the territory and pretty soon started to bring in more business than the previous guy, not because I was particularly good at it, but because I found that the previous guy had been going home about lunch time and never covered more than half of his patch. I remember a store manager in Treorchy telling me that he hadn’t seen Smiths Crisps for at least two years. I was determined to do the job properly, so made sure I covered the whole territory, selling as much as I could.

I remember two occasions that stand out, the first was that I was the first van salesman to sell 600 boxes of crisps in a day. The second was an occasion when I found myself running short of stock on the van, with a few calls left to make. When I got to my last call, I had 3 boxes of crisps and 4 boxes of Chipitos left. The store manager who was my last call in Ebbw Vale (Liptons I think) was not amused. “I don’t want any of those bloody Chipitos” he said, but I convinced him by saying if he had 3 Chipitos I would give him the fourth box free, so he took the last of my stock, and I got back to the depot in Cardiff with an empty van. It was 7.00 pm and Howard was waiting for me. Initially he was not amused by the late hour, but when he saw the van completely empty, he laughed “ Never seen that before” he said. I had set a new record again, so he took me for  pint.

Ten months after joining Smiths, Howard offered me the job of van sales supervisor, essentially the Area Manager’s right hand. I accepted the Job and this was when I bought my first calculator, which cost me £16, which was half of a week’s wage. It did save me a couple of hours every Friday evening, doing my weekly sales report.

I enjoyed the van sales supervisor job, but after two years, a vacancy arose for a special accounts rep. (with a company car). I applied and got the job, and thus started my first job where I could go to work in a suit, driving a new-ish car. I loved it. The job entailed calling on wholesalers and Cash and Carries, and again, by being diligent, I was able to be successful at it.

At this stage, my first marriage was looking rocky, it was clear that the marriage was in trouble, and we were both being unfaithful. I stayed with it because we had 2 sons, Paul & Nigel who I loved very much.

I had been a special Accounts rep for around two years when Howard called me into his office,

“We have a problem” he said “Clive has cocked up on a Cash & Carry manager’s competition, and the manager has chucked us out, I want you to go and sort it if you can”.

The competition was for Cash & Carry managers to put on a good display of Chipitos, and submit a photo of the display, the best one to win a prize, worth a couple of hundred quid. The manager of Harold Leigh (Later Linfood, later still Booker) in Leckwith, Cardiff was the problem, in that Clive, who’s account it was, had done nothing about it, so when the manager read about it in his internal mail, he was livid.

So, I went to see the manager, and after much negotiation, I managed to convince him by offering to deliver two pallets of Chipitos, do the display, take the photos, then uplift and credit the Chipitos and submit the photos to the competition. I agreed to be there when the Chipitos arrived and work on the display.

When the day arrived, I turned up to work on the display. The manager said he wanted to put a motorbike in the display which belonged to one of his staff, I suggested that since we were not selling motorbikes, we should sit somebody on it, preferably some attractive girl. He said there was a very attractive girl working in the jewellery concession, he would ask her to do it.

I will remember this day forever, it was August 13^th 1976, the day I met the most beautiful girl I had ever met, her name was Lorena, she was Italian and had very limited English. I instantly fell in lust. We did the display, took the photos, and I asked Lorena out to lunch. She was 17, I was 32. Surprisingly, she agreed and we had lunch together in a local pub. I met her for lunch once a week for the next few weeks, then she agreed to come out for drinks with me in the evening. This turned into a regular event, but try as I may, I couldn’t get her to submit to my charms, leaving my lust unsatisfied for some time. We married one year to the day after we met.

After we married, Smiths regional manager insisted that I move to Swansea to be central to my area, which covered west Wales and as far north as Aberystwyth. At first I refused, but after I discussed it with Lorena, who had no objection, I agreed. Lorena’s father and uncle clubbed together and gave us £500 as a wedding present, which we used as a deposit on a bungalow in Swansea. We moved in and were happy there, I continued to work as a special accounts rep.

After 10 months living in Swansea, Howard, who was still my boss, said there was a vacancy for an Account Manager in Yorkshire, was I interested? At first I said no, but Howard said I was a fool if I didn’t apply, he thought I was ideally suited to the job and stood a good chance of getting it. He said that once you become a manager, you would always be a manager. It was a great opportunity to develop my career. I discussed it with Lorena and she was up for it.

The initial interview for the job was with Rodney Johnson, a senior manager with Smiths Crisps, who told me he thought he knew all the best special accounts reps in Smiths, but he didn’t know me before the interview. He passed me for the second interview, which was with National Sales Manager, Norman McRae and National Accounts Head, David Nicholson.

I arrived at the interview hotel on a very hot summer day. While I was waiting a guy I knew called Brian R came out of his interview, fully suited up and sweating life a pig, he was overweight too, so that didn’t help. “the bastards wouldn’t let me take my jacket off” he said, disgruntled. I was next in, and forewarned is forearmed, so I went in and immediately took my jacket off and put it over the back of my chair, telling them I was sure they wouldn’t mind since they were both in shirtsleeves.

Their style of interviewing was ‘good cop, bad cop’ and throughout the interview David Nicholson would throw in a sarcastic comment, while Norman conducted a normal interview, discussing my background, experience etc. Well into the interview, Nicholson said “You’ve got very dark rings around your eyes” to which I replied “you should see them from my side”. They both burst out laughing, I got the job. Regional Accounts Manager, North East and Scotland, based in Leeds. It took six months to sell our bungalow in Swansea and In the meantime I stayed in hotels, but eventually we bought a house in Garforth, Leeds.

My good fortune was, rather like the first van-sales job in Smiths, I followed a guy who wasn’t really interested in doing a proper job, he didn’t visit clients regularly, didn’t do the job that was needed.

As part of the job I had to regularly drive to Kew, London, to attend head office for meetings and other things. I had wondered why we were not serving Leeds Co-op, which was a big potential customer, but several of the senior managers in head office told me not to bother, since several of the senior managers had tried to get the business and had failed. “The guy hates us, he won’t have Smiths in his stores at any price” they said.

I decided to try anyway, so I phoned Leeds Co-op and surprisingly got an appointment. When I arrived, the person I met was part of the management committee, they had sacked the buyer and were looking for a replacement. The guy I met couldn’t give me the business, but told me to keep in touch for when they got a new buyer. They eventually employed a guy who I knew from Bristol Co-op and I got an appointment with him and I think he was as happy as I was to see a familiar face, so we had a good start. I got the business and when I told my boss ( I didn’t tell him about the new buyer), the buzz went around head office that John Mudd was an account manager to watch.

Also, using Bonus Bonds as motivation I was able to get substantial allocation orders for Big D nuts from the regional manager for Tesco, which added to my reputation in head office, with everyone thinking I was becoming something of a star at head office. (A good friend of mine who worked for Andrex, called head office ‘the dream factory) That, together with my determination to do well by visiting every customer regularly, I was getting good results and increasing the business.

When I was account manager, one of my accounts was Morrisons, which was a much smaller business in those days. There I met Ken Morrison. Who seemed like a nice guy.

After about 18 months of living in Leeds, the Area Manager for the south was promoted to National Accounts Manager, creating a vacancy for his old post, based in Eastleigh, near Southampton. I applied and was interviewed by Adrian Lewis, the Regional Manager. I got the job

It was my first real man-management job and I Learned very quickly the folly of becoming too friendly with your staff. We went to dinner at the home of one of my reps one Saturday evening, then on Monday I was scheduled to do store checks on his patch, only to find that he wasn’t visiting his customers regularly, he was phoning them for orders, so the Cash & Carries were not being merchandised and we were losing sales. I then had the difficult task of dressing him down and giving him a written warning.

Part of my area as Area Sales Manager was the Channel Islands. We had a rep based in Jersey, who we called Channel Islands Manager, Ron Smith. Smiths had a small depot in Jersey where Ron was based. He would do the selling and then make the deliveries in his estate car from the depot, which received a once-a-week lorry delivery from the mainland.

I visited The Islands once a month to accompany Ron to visit some of his accounts. This was brilliant because I could buy a box of 50 King Edward cigars from a cash and carry, duty free for £5. That’s when I started smoking cigars.

Every Couple of months, my boss Adrian Lewis, would accompany me to the Islands to visit customers. This was great because Adrian was a real character and our joint visits were always a joy. When Adrian came, we always made an appointment with George Hibbard, the big boss at Le-Riche, a substantial customer on the Islands. These appointments always culminated in taking George and his partner to lunch. Always a long and boozy lunch, taking about four hours.

Prior to lunch, George’s secretary would come in at exactly 11.30 and tell George the time, at which point he would turn to his filing cabinet behind him and open it to reveal a fully stocked fridge disguised as a filing cabinet, and we would end the meeting with several large G & T’s  (in Adrians case a large Famous Grouse whisky) before departing to lunch.

In those days, Smiths were using a lot of ‘dealer loaders’, things like Monster Munch cuddly toys, transistor radios and similar small incentives to get wholesale managers to buy a little extra. Realising the temptation of my team to keep one of each of these incentives, I declared to my team that I had no problem with them having one, as long as they covered it with extra sales . (not quite legitimate, but you have to allow for human nature) One guy in the team, who was rated highly by the previous area manager, was surprised when I turned up un-announced one Monday morning to pick him up in Swindon. He had two dogs in the car with him (strictly against the rules). I told him I was going to check his accounts who received (according to him) a transistor radio, he broke down and confessed that not one had been given to customers, but had all been given to family members. I made him get them all back and put them back in the system. He resigned soon after.

It was while I was in Jersey on one visit that, on returning to the depot, I was told I had to phone Norman McRae, the National Sales Manager. I phoned Norman and was told that he wanted me in head office that afternoon. I explained that I was in Jersey and my car was parked at Eastleigh airport and I couldn’t possibly get to Kew much before 7 pm. He told me, get here, I will wait for you.

You can imagine the panic in my mind ‘what was this about, how much trouble am I in, what have I done wrong. Well I called the airport and was able to get an early flight back to Eastleigh. I got in my car and drove to Kew, arriving at about 7.30 in the evening. Norman was waiting. I was thinking I must be in some serious sh** for the National Sales Manager to be staying on for hours to wait for me.

Norman’s opening words were “thanks for coming, sorry to spring this on you” he then explained that there was to be a major re-organisation, changing from an all divisions mix to specialist divisions, one serving wholesale & Cash & Carry outlets and the other serving retail with van sales.. He wanted me to be Area Sales Manager for the Wholesale Division covering South Wales and the West Country, back to manage the team I had once been part of, I would become the boss of my former colleagues. I agreed immediately, much to the annoyance of my wife Lorena, who loved Eastleigh.

So, we bought a house in Caerphilly and I took charge of my old team. It was very interesting to see the reaction of my old team-mates to me coming back as their boss. Clive in particular found it difficult, since he had patronised me previously, referring me as the new kid who knew nothing in comparison to him who was in his opinion a superior salesman. It didn’t take me long to learn that Clive was in fact the weakest link. Nothing was ever Clive’s fault, someone else was always to blame. At one meeting, when Clive was blaming his last Area Manager for something that had gone wrong, Ron A., one of the oldest in the team, jumped down Clive’s throat and told him to take responsibility for his own mistakes.

I once checked, while out with Ron A, an account to which he had given £300 of premium bonds for no apparent business increase. We sat in Ron’s car outside the account and I told him I was going to discuss this with the customer and he broke down and admitted that he hadn’t given them to the account, but had kept them for himself. I made him give them to me and said to him “you know what’s going to happen now don’t you” Ron said “Yes, you’re going to sack me” I replied “ Ron, you are a good salesman and an integral part of the team, and you’ve been with the company for 20 years, what I’m going to do is kick your ass and tell you not to be so stupid again. I’m not going to sack you, this stays between us” I filtered the bonds back into the system and no more was said, but I had gained the man’s respect and he was an ally for ever more.

During this period a vacancy arose in my team and I interviewed several candidates for the job, one of which was a van salesman called Steve P.        I didn’t offer Steve the job,but gave it to another young guy. He lasted a month then left, so I offered the job to Steve. At first he was so annoyed at not being given the job in the first place, he refused it, but eventually, acting on advice from Howard James, he accepted. I’m glad he did, he has now worked for me in three different companies and has become a life-long friend.

During yet another re-organisation, the regions changed and my new regional manager was called Kevin W. who was based in Knutsford, so regional meetings were now conducted in Knutsford. We frequently had two day meetings at golf courses (Kevin was a keen golfer) and in overall terms he was a pretty good boss, but he was a stickler for paperwork, and we had several fall-outs over my failure to get paper-work in on time. I argued that as a sales manager, I saw my priority being achieving sales targets, but Kevin insisted that the sales would come automatically, and my job was to make sure the paperwork was always in on time. This philosophy was alien to me and so I eventually decided that I couldn’t work for a boss who was determined to make me an admin clerk, and I resigned.

To prove to myself that I was a good salesman, I took a job selling kitchens, with a company called Kitchens Direct. This proved to be a disaster. The job was commission only, so if you didn’t sell, you didn’t earn, and if there was any issue with a customer, the company deducted money from your commission. There was also a philosophy of ‘get the order, or kill the sale’ you had to close the sale at the first visit, or abandon the customer. There was also an attitude that you should quote a price higher than the real price, so that you could then offer a discount. I hated it, but I was trapped in a job that offered me a very meagre living, and I had a family to support. I eventually found a job with a company in Swansea that did kitchens and bedrooms. This was a more reliable employer, and although I didn’t earn big bucks, it was better.

It was during this period that I attended a sales course run by the Welsh Office, during which I met Roger, who owned a small kitchen shop in Mountain Ash. Roger offered me a job, but I told him I needed a job with a company car. Roger agreed to buy me a second-hand car if I took the job. So I did and started selling kitchens for Roger. Better earnings and better working conditions, but still not great earnings.

After several months working for Roger, I was at home one morning when I received a phone call from Norman McRae, who had left Smiths Crisps and set up a training and recruitment company. Norman asked me if I was interested in a job as southern sales manager for Bensons Crisps. I told him I was very interested.

I was interviewed by Malcolm Jones, the chairman and Ron Eagle, the sales director in an hotel in Reading. Apparently Malcolm preferred another candidate but Ron insisted that I was the better candidate and eventually Malcolm conceded and I was offered the job. At last, a job with a salary and a company car again.

It was May 1987 when I started working for Bensons and as well as sales manager, I was part of a three person management team responsible for the profitable running the southern division. There was myself, Dave Eason the factory manager and the financial manager, at that time a guy, who was later sacked for being suspected of fiddling the books. He was replaced by a lady called Sian and the team ran well.

At the time I took the job, I inherited a team of two salesmen, John T and Graham A, (referred to be all as Nobby, a title he hated). There was very little organisation in the sales team, no journey plans and no pre-set objectives, like targets. The salesmen would get up in the morning and decide where to go to get an order. Total chaos.

I quickly started to organise the salesmen, building journey plans, organising targets and specific objectives. One day I was out with Nobby and we called on Sharedrug (a company later bought-out by Superdrug). During the appointment, the buyer was giving off buying signals like machjne-gun fire. Nobby ignored them all with an ‘I’m talking, stop interrupting me’ attitude. In the car afterwards, Nobby, full of self confidence, said “ how do you think that went”. He was seeking praise. I gently assured him that although it was OK, it may have been better if he recognised the buyer’s buying signals and closed the deal, getting the order when the buyer wanted to give it. Nobby was not amused, he thought he was the best salesman in the world.

Nobby later went on a sales training course, run by Norman McRae’s company. Norman phoned Malcolm Jones and told him that Nobby was refusing to participate stating that he was a better salesman than those trying to train him.

Onee day Ron Eagle called me into his office and confronted me with the other salesman, John T. “John wants to tell you something” he said. John T then let loose with a tirade of abuse and told me that he was resigning because he hated me and thought I didn’t know what I was doing and he couldn’t tolerate the changes I was making. I remained calm and replied that I liked him and was surprised that he didn’t have more bottle and couldn’t adapt to change. He stayed a while but eventually left.

Eventually, 3 years into the job, I had a team of 5 salesmen, all working to organised journey plans and with monthly targets. We had dramatically increased the business and had successfully launched a range of snack products, much to the delight of our chairman.

In 1990, the company wanted to launch a product called ‘Snack & Dip’ which was a pack of crisps with a dip inside. Malcolm Jones was keen to get the product to a good start and asked me to organise a launch meeting for the National sales team and do a proper presentation to introduce the product. I negotiated a good deal with a Midlands hotel for a presentation room and accommodation for everyone for a Friday. I was to present the product on Friday afternoon and we would have a team dinner on the Friday evening, with everyone staying the night and going home Saturday morning.

Bensons didn’t have a marketing department, so I was left to organise the whole thing and put the presentation together, which I did. The presentation went well, I presented the product to the sales team and every one took samples away with them and were enthusiastic about the product launch.

After dinner, Malcolm Jones asked to talk to me privately, so we went to a quiet corner and sat with a dink. Malcolm told me he wanted to start a marketing department and asked me if I was interested in being Marketing Manager. I said “Are you floating an idea or offering me the job?”

He said he was offering me the job and we negotiated a package. I told him ( would have to discuss it with my wife first, since it would entail a move to Preston. Lorena was ok with the prospect so I took the job on the condition that the company gave me a bridging loan, so I could move house quickly. On previous house moves I had to work away from home for 6 months or so while we sold our house, and with two small daughters, I didn’t want to leave Lorena alone with the kids. Malcolm agreed to that so we moved to Preston in early 1991.

Setting up a new department was new to me, so I took a while to settle in, but soon achieved a good working relationship with Maureen McDonald  who ran Longcastle, a company that Bensons used to print visual aids and advertising materials. Maureen was a good marketeer and was very helpful to me in my new role, We had a good relationship that lasted several years. I also used a graphic design company in Liverpool to design packaging for new products.

Working closely with the product development team, we successfully launched a number of new snack products and the business continued to grow well. By this time Nobby had been promoted to National Accounts Manager, also based in Preston. Malcolm Jones thought highly of Nobby

and he brought in a lot of new business, but it was all at very low prices and Bensons, now in their new custom built factory in Kirkham, Lancs were operating a three shift system, struggling to keep up with sales, but they were working on very slender margins for most of their supermarket business, a dangerous way to run a business, they were becoming busy fools.

While I was working for Malcolm Jones, he would often ask me to join him in his office at 4.45pm for a meeting. At about 5.15 when all the secretaries had left, he would go to the cabinet in his office and come back with a bottle of whisky and a jug of water and we would discuss any issue he wanted to raise about the business. I ofen went home half cut. Ron  Eagle told me one day that Malcolm was picking my brains and would often say something to Ron that Ron said was a John Mudd-ism. To test this out I threw in little-used  phrase to Malcolm during one of our whisky and water meetings. The phrase was ‘cogniscent as I am’. Surely enough, the next board meeting I attended he was using the phrase as his own.

Bensons board, needing to cut costs, decided to close the southern factory in Rogerstone near Newport in Gwent. I approached Malcolm Jones and asked him to let me buy the southern business for £1, which would avoid Bensons the cost of shutting the factory, which would include many thousands in redundancy costs. I didn’t have a business plan for this, I was flying by the seat of my pants. Malcolm asked me to give him a week to think about my offer, and eventually called me into his office and told me he couldn’t accept my proposal. When I asked him why, he told me that he didn’t want me as a competitor. This I took as an enormous compliment.

In an attempt to get Bensons to keep the Newport factory open, I suggested that they launch a range of hand-cooked crisps, which they had previously tried, without much success. I had tried a re-launch under the title ‘Dixie Chips’ with confederate flag on the pack. The launch went OK, but we started to receive complaints that we were being racist, in favour of slavery, which was nonsense of course, we were just trying to sell crisps.

Eventually I created a business plan for a launch of hand-cooked crisps which I called Real Crisps (The name I derived from the names of my two daughters, Rebecca and Rachel). I presented this plan to Malcolm Jones, but he turned it down saying it wouldn’t work. I continued to perfect the plan and decided that if Bensons wouldn’t do it I would do it myself. My conviction was that I could create a brand that would become the ‘must have’ crisps range in Wales.

Around this time, Bensons began to be in trouble. A banker was forced onto the board, the finance director was sacked and replaced by an accountant appointed by the bank. His name was Neil Hopkins-Coleman and he knew as much about commerce as I know about the breeding habits of the Natterjack Toad. Eventually, Malcolm Jones was forced into retirement and Hopkins-Coleman was appointed Managing Director. The Kiss of death for Bensons. Hopkins-Coleman and I did not get on and in April 1995 he offered me a package of £35 k to leave, which I gladly accepted. We sold the house in Preston and moved back to Wales. Within 6 months Bensons business collapsed and the company went into liquidation. Apparently Hopkins-Coleman let the buyout of a nut packaging in Tewksbury for a stupid high figure. 80% of that company’s turnover was with one customer and Bensons bought the company without checking with the customer that they were OK with the arrangement. They weren’t and they took the business away. Bensons was in trouble and that was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Armed with my business plan an £35k in cash, I set about trying to start my own company. I approached a department of the Welsh Office for business advice but they told me that my project was too big for them, but they recommended an accountant called Mervyn Harris who was a partner in an accountancy practice in Cardiff. I contacted Mervyn and arranged a meeting.

Mervyn was great. He got me to re-do my business plan, giving me all the information I needed to make it presentable to banks, and agreed to take on my case, to achieve financing on a no win no fee basis. We applied for a grant from the Welsh Office, which we didn’t get. The guy we dealt.  with said “your business plan shows a shortfall of £35k in your finances” we replied that was why we needed a grant, he told us that they wouldn’t support a company that showed that deficit. We then said what if we could fill that £35k deficit, to which he replied “then you won’t need a grant, will you”

With my business plan re-written and with Mervyn’s help and enthusiasm, we started meeting with banks in an attempt to raise the necessary finance. One bank manager said that whilst it was plain that I had all the necessary experience to drive sales, who was going to run the production side of the business? I set about trying to find  production manager. I called Dave Eason, former factory manager at Bensons South Wales factory and still a good friend, for advice. Dave suggested I contact Jeff Meredith, former cook at the South Wales factory. I got hold of Jeff and he was interested. I offered him the job and he agreed to accompany Mervyn and me to meet the bank. Midland bank was the third bank we tried, and the business manager, Brian Evans was supportive and happy to accept Jeff as production manager, but wished that we could find an additional £10,000 and that if we could, he was happy to arrange a bank loan of £100k under the government guarantee scheme, which meant that we had to pay a monthly subscription to the government loan insurance scheme. It wasn’t a substantial monthly cost. Suddenly Jeff said “ I can put £10 k in if I can be aa partner” and so it was, as well as being production mamager jeff had a 20% share of the business. We were off!

Dave Eason phoned me a week or so later and told me that a Bombay mix company in Manchester was closing down and was h=keen to find a buyer for ll their equipment, so Jeff and I  travelled to Machester to view the kit. It offered everything we needed so we bought it for £30 k on the condition that one of the partners would travel down to South Wales to help us set it up, which they had agreed to do.

We found premises through the Welsh Development Agency (WDA) in a 4,000 square foot unit in Cwnfelinfach near Risca, and set about getting it to food production standard, which involved erecting dividing walls of white foam filled metal cladding. This achieved, we set about installing the kit, which included a gas fired cooker, an electric tumble drum for flavouring, a swan-neck elevator which lifted the product to a high platform above the bag-maker. Flavouring had to be in small batches, but into the flavour drum which was effectively a cement mixer with a plastic drum, which the tipped out onto the bottom of the swan-neck elevator For potato peeling, we had a chip-shop style peeler, so most everything was done my hand, very labour intensive, but it worked. We were in production, making crisps in 5 flavours. Packaging was designed by the Liverpool company I had used in Bensons, and packaging was produced by a small company in Italy.

I had researched the market and found that only Kettle Chips were selling hand-cooked crisps apart from a small regional company in the South East called Jonathans. This was run by an eccentric guy called John who had no grander ambitions to expand his business, he hated customers.

Kettle Chips advertised their product as ‘Cocktail party crisps’ and almost exclusively sold 150g bags. My vision was to bring hand-cooked crisps to the general market in small packs, Then I was the only one, now everyone’s doing it.

Our early sales came from Van Sales, with  3 salesmen working throughout South Wales selling off vans. I managed to get a few small wholesalers in Wales interested and we were managing a small buy steady sales level. The product wasn’t perfect though, because the cooker we had bought was inadequate for the job. Eventually we secured a cooker from Benson old factory which the engineer was told to destroy. He gave it to us instead. This resulted in a better, less oily product, so we were doing some good business.

As part of my role as Managing Director I was carrying out a myriad of tasks. Ordering raw materials (potatoes, flavours, packaging film, cartons) costing production, selling, running the sales team, dealing with the bank,etc. I had eemployed a girl in the office, her name was Claire and she was good at all the tasks I set her.

After about 18 months, it was becoming clear that the business was under-funded and we were running into financial difficulties. I approached a few people to find an investor for the business. I had a strong belief that we had a good product and would be successful, but I needed a partner to inject some money into the business. After some time I approached the M.D. of Bar and Restaurant Foods (a successful supplier to the catering industry) the M.D. was Jeremy Leonard and after convincing him that we had a good product and a good future, Jeremy agreed to put £50k into the business and underwrite our purchase costs, in exchange for 80% of the business, so we had a partner and I could put all my efforts into building the business. Jeremy became M.D. and we changed the name of the business to Sirhowy Valley Foods. I became Sales and Marketing Director, and all of the Directors of BAR Foods became shareholder in the company, with Tim Barker handling all the technical issues relating to production. BAR Foods had several premises on the industrial estate and Jeremy suggested that we move into a 10,000 square foot premises that they were using for storage. This unit was the turned into high standard production facility and we moved in, buying two American cookers from the USA, and started manufacturing an even better product. By this stage our turnover was £580 k and business was booming. Jeremy and his wife were eager to retire, so he appointed one of his directors to become M.D. of BAR foods, his name was Alan Shepherd who was without doubt the worse man-manager I had ever met. The uy had a huge ego and tried his best to humiliate me at every opportunity, walking out of meetings and telling me that talking to me was like pushing water up hill. On one occasion I was presented with a set of accounts that showed that my company was losing money and the company was worthless. I took the accounts to Mervyn Harris, who by now had become a good friend, he checked the accounts and told me they were fraudulent, and were obviously concocted to force me out of the company. I was determined that they wouldn’t do that, so at a subsequent board meeting I said that I would buy the company back for £1 if it was worthless. Obviously they didn’t want that to happen, then I told them that I was aware that I had ben presented with a falsified set of accounts designed to dis-advantage a minor shareholder and that that was a criminal offence, so did they want me to persue that matter or would they prefer to get off my back and let me concentrate on building the business. They got off my back.

When we moved into the new premises, we employed an operations manager to run the factory and transport and increased the office staff to three. I got in touch with the WDA who were offering the help of their sales specialist, Mike Moran to help us break into supermarkets. Mike and I met up and Mike told me he thought he could get us into Tesco on a regional basis, via the regional manager of Tesco. This he did and it got us off to a good start, Then he got us into Asda in the region. I had been trying to get a meeting with the Sainsburys buyer for some time, then one day I got a call from Sainsburys and the buyer said to me “I hear there’s a product of yours selling well in Wales, why don’t I know about it?” I replied that was because he wouldn’t take my calls. He replied that he was listening now and we made an appointment for me to go to his office in London. I got a regional listing in Sainsbuys. We were on our way.

It was at a subsequent visit to Sainsburys head office that I bumped into Robin Wall, who had been a colleague in Bensons. Robin was working freelance for a Dutch, selling their products in the UK. I bought Robin Lunch and offered him a job as our National Accounts Manager. Robin wanted to stay self-employed, so we agreed a package of a retainer and commission and Robin joined us at Real Crisps and pretty soon started to bring in some substantial business in the supermarket sector. Robin was a natural, and soon had us making private label products for Asda and Somerfield. I also employed Steve Pillar, who had worked in my team at Smiths Crisps and later joined my sales team in Bensons. Steve’s role in Reaal Crips was to develop the wholesale sector, which he did quite successfully. I added a few more reps and the business continued to grow in several sectors. We did particularly well with coffee companies and I got the business with Starbucks and Café Nero.

Later, our operations manager, Peter Menzies, told me that he had never see growth like ours. In the 5 years he had been with the company, our turnover had increased 10-fold, from £580 k when he joined us to £5.8 million 5 years later. He attributed that success to my role as Sales & Marketing Director.

By 2007, 10 years after I had founded the company, we were selling 50,000 cases of crisps per week and had an annual turnover of £13.5 million. My co-directors decided they wanted to sell the company at this stage, so we hired a high flying guy to handle the sale. A price of £10 million was agreed and we set about seeking a buyer.

Eventually, an Irish company who had bought Golden Wonder’s assets from the official receiver and were on the acquisition trail, after all checks and due diligence were carried out, we agreed a sale (I am not at liberty to reveal the price) and we sold the company in November 1997. I stayed with the new owners for 6 months before retiring in early 2008, shortly before the world’s economy collapsed.

Howard James, Steve Pillar, Mike Moran, Robin Wall and Mervyn Harris have all become lifelong friends. Sadly Howard and Mike are no longer with us.