Inside Track Q&A: Cornelius Traas, The Apple Farm, Cahir, Co Tipperary

The Apple Farm in Cahir, Co Tipperary, has been in business since 1968 and employs 12 people.

What is special about your business?
We are a long-established family business and the apples we sell are all grown in our orchards in Tipperary. We use only our own apples to make our juices right here on the farm. We also grow pears, plums, sweet cherries, strawberries and raspberries, and make cider vinegar.

Apples have been grown in this area for hundreds of years and since 1968 we have been planting more orchards to increase our supply. We are also very mindful about the environmental sustainability of what we do.

What sets your products apart in your sector?
In terms of juice, we use a particular apple called Karmine, which is grown almost nowhere else in the world. It gives our juices a very special flavour with an aroma of pears.

What has been your biggest challenge?
Managing to make our first batch of sparkling apple juice. I thought it would be fairly easy, but it took about two years from when I bought the equipment, which is usually used for beer bottling, to when we had our first successful batch of carbonated, cloudy apple juice. At that point, nobody else was selling a product like it and even now it is very unusual to find something like it, even on international markets.

What key piece of advice would you give to someone starting a food business?
If you are not going to produce the raw materials yourself, go for something in which Ireland has an abundance of raw materials at a reasonable price – milk might be a good example. Make something really good, with a fantastic story behind it, and think about premium export markets from early on.

Who do you admire most in business and why?
No one person, but I very much admire the Quaker business principles that people in this locality still praise. There were Quakers involved in milling in this area in the past. Rather than putting profit first, they made business ethics, honour and long-term success their priorities.

What could the Government do to help SMEs in the current environment?
In my opinion the single biggest thing would be the urgent introduction of smart electricity metering whereby if I use electricity at peak demand periods I get charged the full economic cost but if I use it when generation costs are low, I get charged a lower price.

The existing day/night system is far too simplistic and adds to the overall cost of electricity by keeping demand high at peak periods. It does not permit SMEs to use electricity in the most environmentally efficient way.

In your experience are the banks lending to SMEs currently?
This is not something I want to find out as the cost of extra borrowing could push a low margin business like this from profitability to loss-making very easily. Access to a large overdraft seems to be a thing of the past with term loans now being offered instead.

What's the biggest mistake you've made in business?
My biggest ongoing mistake is to retain too much control of tasks I should be delegating to others. If I keep reminding myself of this, I might improve eventually.

What is the most frustrating part of running a small business?
I love it. What is frustration?

What's your business worth and would you sell it?
To me it is worth more than can ever be reflected in the bottom line. I think you could say the same for many half-farmer/half-businessmen. Given that my parents came to Ireland from abroad more than 40 years ago with the specific aim of starting a fruit growing business, and I grew up here with that, I could not sell.

In conversation with Olive Keogh