>>muesli company had small start but now sells to 50 countries
The management behind muesli manufacturer Dorset Cereals are celebrating winning a contract with US retail chain Publix to supply 200 of its stores and are hoping to roll out to its entire 800 store estate. They are negotiating with three other US retailers.
Not bad for a regional food supplier which was set up in 1989 and, although it has 33 full-time staff now, grew out of a wholefoods packaging company with three employees.
The full staff complement includes seven managers, with MD Terry Crabb handling commercial operations. The team includes operations director Gill Farmer, UK sales manager Brian Crowley, operations manager Martin Ball and production manager Richard Smith. Quality manager Kevin Hilton and accounts manager Liz Simmons complete the line-up.
Crabb says: “I was a general manager for BHS when I bought Sun Cottage Whole Foods in 1985. Realising there was no muesli in its range, we launched two and immediately saw that was where growth was coming from. I then set up Dorset Cereals as a separate company.”
Sun Cottage Whole Foods is still going, he says, but Dorset Cereals has dwarfed it and now makes own label and branded breakfast cereals and exports to 50 countries.
And as the firm’s success grows, Crabb says its 30,000 sq ft plant at the Prince of Wales’ Poundbury estate, near Dorchester, can double capacity to meet demand.
Sun cottage is now dwarfed by Dorset
The management behind muesli manufacturer Dorset Cereals are celebrating winning a contract with US retail chain Publix to supply 200 of its stores and are hoping to roll out to its entire 800 store estate. They are negotiating with three other US retailers.
Not bad for a regional food supplier which was set up in 1989 and, although it has 33 full-time staff now, grew out of a wholefoods packaging company with three employees.
The full staff complement includes seven managers, with MD Terry Crabb handling commercial operations. The team includes operations director Gill Farmer, UK sales manager Brian Crowley, operations manager Martin Ball and production manager Richard Smith. Quality manager Kevin Hilton and accounts manager Liz Simmons complete the line-up.
Crabb says: “I was a general manager for BHS when I bought Sun Cottage Whole Foods in 1985. Realising there was no muesli in its range, we launched two and immediately saw that was where growth was coming from. I then set up Dorset Cereals as a separate company.”
Sun Cottage Whole Foods is still going, he says, but Dorset Cereals has dwarfed it and now makes own label and branded breakfast cereals and exports to 50 countries.
And as the firm’s success grows, Crabb says its 30,000 sq ft plant at the Prince of Wales’ Poundbury estate, near Dorchester, can double capacity to meet demand.
Sun cottage is now dwarfed by Dorset
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