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The potato farmer who swapped

bankruptcy for making millions
By Will Smale
Business reporter, BBC News
8 February 2016

Business

Lawrence Looi (STF)

William Chase's vodka is now sold around the world

For a Herefordshire potato farmer,

William Chase is impressively savvy
about the need for positive publicity, and

The Boss

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the importance of telling a good story.

The female friends who

set up a gym chain

It is a talent that helped him move from being

bankrupt, aged 32, to becoming a
multimillionaire by the time he was 48.

The takeaway worker

turned IT boss

Along the way he created and sold

best-selling upmarket crisps brand Tyrrells,
and won a high-profile battle against
supermarket giant Tesco.

Turning rubbish into

gold
The men who sell
Brooklyns cool

Now 56, and the founder and owner of Chase

Vodka, a luxury version of the spirit made from potatoes grown on his
farm, the serial entrepreneur says: "People love stories, the real stories
behind things.
"And the media was very important to me from the first days of Tyrrells.
"I was a guy who had been beaten up by the supermarkets, and
people love to support the underdog."

'Ashamed'
The son of potato farmers who lived near the Herefordshire town of
Leominster, Mr Chase bought the family farm from his dad when he
was 20 after he "managed to find a bank manager brave enough to
lend me 200,000".

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Growing potatoes is in Mr Chase's blood

As the cost of potatoes can rise and fall sharply, business was up and
down for the next 12 years, until torrential rain in 1992 meant he
couldn't harvest his crop, which he had to leave to rot in the fields.
Overextended financially, the business collapsed, and Mr Chase had to
file for bankruptcy. He says: "I was very ashamed and embarrassed."
After "running away to Australia" for a few months, he returned to
Herefordshire, and was able to borrow funds to buy back the farm from
the receivers, and start up in business again.
This time, to make extra money, he became a potato trader, buying
spuds from a number of farms, and then selling them on to
supermarkets.
Yet while he got himself back on his feet financially, Mr Chase says he
became increasingly frustrated that supermarkets would reject
potatoes that weren't "cosmetically perfect".
He adds: "I'd send off 10 loads of spuds every day, and I'd be getting
five back. It was very painful how the supermarkets were treating us
farmers."

Lawrence Looi (STF)

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The business now also makes a gin

Mr Chase's life-changing moment came in 2002 when he found out that

rejected potatoes were being bought up by the UK operation of US
crisp-maker Kettle.
At the time Kettle was one of new companies making so-called "posh
crisps", potato crisps which were cut a little thicker than the
mass-market brands, and fried by hand.
Despite having no crisp-making experience or knowledge, Mr Chase
was convinced he could set up his own upmarket crisps brand.
So he phoned a few UK crisp-makers to ask if he could see how they
did things, and all said "no". Undeterred, he flew out to the US and
visited facilities in Pennsylvania and Colorado.
Returning to the UK, he built a crisp-making facility at the family farm,
and Tyrrells [taking its name from the property] was up and running six
months later.

Tesco row
Quick to tell his story to local newspapers to build up publicity, Mr
Chase hit the road to spend two weeks visiting independent food
shops across the UK with samples of his crisps.
He says: "Tyrrells grew and grew very quickly, and it was a brilliant
cash cow. We'd sell the bags to shops for 1 and they would retail
them for 2. For us the net profit was 35%."

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Mr Chase sold the crisps business in 2008

Supermarkets such as Waitrose soon followed suit, but Mr Chase was

adamant that he would not sell to the largest - Tesco - because he
didn't like what he saw as the pressure it put on farmers to lower their
prices.
Then one day in 2006 a friend told him that Tesco was selling Tyrrells'
crisps. It transpired that Tesco had been buying them on the grey
market, and selling them below the recommended retail price.
An incensed Mr Chase demanded that Tesco stop selling them. After
the supermarket refused, Mr Chase started a media campaign that
included an appearance on BBC Radio 4's Today programme. Tesco
then did back down.
W ith sales of Tyrrells crisps continuing to grow over the next few years,
and annual turnover hitting 14m, Mr Chase borrowed money from his
bank to expand production. The condition the bank set was that he had
to bring in a management team to help him run the business.

Matt Cardy

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Mr Chase still grows potatoes at his farm in Herefordshire

Mr Chase, who had previously been very hands on, and liked to help
out with all parts of the business, says that bringing in new managers
ultimately changed the business - to its detriment.
"We got to a stage where I didn't like where the business was going,"
he says. "We were employing corporate people who were arranging
meetings about more meetings."
Unhappy with Tyrrells' new big business ethos, and going through a
"messy divorce", Mr Chase - who was the sole shareholder - decided
to sell up in 2008 to a private capital business for almost 40m.

Spirits business
Looking for a new business venture, and with the new owners of
Tyrrells choosing to buy their potatoes from elsewhere, Mr Chase
came up with the idea of turning his spuds into premium vodka.

Matt Cardy

It takes 300 potatoes to make one 750ml bottle of vodka. The spuds are mixed with water
and fermented, before the liquid is then distilled

So with money no longer a problem, he bought a distillation system,

and Chase Vodka was born.

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Aimed at the luxury end of the market, it retails for 35 a bottle.

W hile Mr Chase admits it isn't anywhere near as profitable as selling
crisps, it appears to be very much a labour of love. And focused very
much on exports, he spends a lot of time travelling the world to build up
sales.
And showing that he has lost little of his public relations skills, every
year he flies influential barmen and women from around the world to
visit his farm in Herefordshire to see how the potatoes are grown, and
vodka is made.
Also now making a gin and a whisky, the Chase Distillery sells 10,000
bottles a week.
Mr Chase says: "You have to tell people your story if you want to build
your brand. But there has to be real DNA behind it if you want to be
successful."

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