Yogurt manufacturer with organic growth

FUTURE PROOF - Glenisk:Founded 25 years ago, Glenisk has prospered in the recession by exporting and by developing new lines within a culture of constant improvement

REVENUE AT Irish yoghurt producer Glenisk has nearly doubled from €9 million at the height of the boom, and is expected to top €18 million this year.

This is despite being “one of the most expensive yoghurt brands on the shelves”, according to managing director Vincent Cleary, who is quick to point out quality does not come cheap.

The Co Offaly firm was established in 1987 by Vincent’s father Jack (John) Cleary and today sells more than 110,000 servings of yogurt every day, or 40 million a year.

“It was founded out of necessity during the last major recession. My father had 14 children and he wanted to create employment for them. The firm was an artisan yoghurt producer for a number of years.”

The company’s original operations were very small – they didn’t even have a pot filler to package the yoghurts. However, they had equipment to fill milk cartons, so they decided to put yoghurt into cartons.

“Selling yoghurt in milk cartons was huge in Scandinavia at the time but unheard of here. I remember my first meeting with Quinnsworth when I was trying to convince them to buy the product. They were very bemused by our packaging and I didn’t think I’d hear from them again.”

Quinnsworth called later that day though, seeking the product for 12 Dublin stores.

Glenisk’s next product did not arrive until nearly a decade later, when an organic version of the yoghurt was introduced.

“The first major crossroads was in 1995, when my father passed away. That was the year we decided to go organic to secure our longer-term proposition. For the first eight years we were on the fringes by going organic.”

“We brought out two organic lines. They seemed to be taking over supermarkets in Germany at the time. Luckily, the Quinnsworth buyer had just returned from Germany and saw how organic foods were taking off there.

“Then Tesco took over Quinnsworth and we were very worried, as Quinnsworth was our biggest customer at the time. Thankfully, Tesco saw organic goods as having an important place in their product list going forward.”

Glenisk, which celebrates 25 years in business this year, also sells goats’ milk and goats’ milk yoghurt.

“In the late Nineties, I rescued two goats and started hand-milking them. I sold the milk to a woman in Stillorgan.”

The product took off, and Cleary began to receive more and more calls from people looking for goats’ milk.

“I scoured Ireland looking for goats. I ultimately amassed 200 goats and bought seven acres of land, as I didn’t have any land in my name at the time. We bought a mobile home – it was supposed to be temporary but we ended up living in it for 8½ years. I was eventually given the ultimatum: my marriage or the goats. So I had to give them up.”

The company now gets milk from 6,500 goats on a weekly basis, and exports pallets of goats’ milk and goats’ milk yoghurt every week to the UK.

The firm, which employs more than 50 people, recorded revenue of €11 million in 2010, climbing 27 per cent to €14 million last year, but things have not always been easy.

“The recession hit us in early 2008. We saw a lot more imported yoghurt products on the shelves in supermarkets. We had to go through self-imposed bouts of deflation, which hurt as our costs didn’t come down in line.

“We wondered how we would get ourselves out of the recession mess. Everyone was saying exporting was the only way out, so we decided to begin doing that. It took time to seek out contacts and develop relationships, though. We were relatively unknown abroad and it’s all about credibility.”

Now, some 20 per cent of all Glenisk products are exported, mainly to the UK.

“We also decided to improve our product. We had a baby product that wasn’t setting the world on fire. When we took the sugar out of the baby yoghurt it boosted our sales. Then we started taking the sugar out of our other yoghurt products and our unit sales increased by 43 per cent. We still have products with sugar but realised you have to offer a choice to consumers.”

The firm also started offering savings to customers if they bought multiple products, which boosted sales by 20 per cent.

His advice for other companies trying to make it in the current economic climate: “Having survived one recession already, we know it is important to keep things simple. We continuously look at our product offering and ask is it what customers want.

“Organic is not a fad any more. There is a defined need for it. We are one of the fastest growing yoghurt companies on the British Isles.”