Case Study - Mary Watson

When Mary Watson and husband Chris decided to embark on a new life in business together, they had no idea it would coincide with so many other life-changing events. Four years later Mary explains how they managed, and why they’re now reaping the rewards: as contented parents, new homeowners and veg box profiteers.

Says Mary: It’s been just over four years since we made our first delivery – that was back in May 2007. Chris and I had been mulling over the idea to set up, or buy, our own business for years. Chris worked long hours in advertising, with an early commute, and I worked in admissions at the University of Warwick. We’d reached the point where we realised we both wanted a change. At first we considered starting our own business from scratch, but soon came to the conclusion that might be a little over ambitious because we had no experience of doing anything like that before.

We had been customers of the Riverford Organic veg box scheme in Leamington, where we were living at the time and, almost by chance, Chris was browsing through the Riverford website. He noticed that they were opening a new farm in North Yorkshire, and that the Sheffield territory – where I’m from – was available.

First steps

I was 5 months pregnant and had already left work, and Chris and I had also been discussing ways we could move back to Sheffield so that we could be closer to family. It seemed like the right time for us to look into the franchise opportunity and so we decided to go to the franchise expo in Birmingham, where we met some of the existing Riverford franchisees. We then made a trip down to Riverford’s main farm in Devon and subsequently lodged our formal application to buy the Sheffield area.

Despite our son being born seven weeks premature, we still managed to get everything in on time and found out our application had been successful just before Christmas. Our business was scheduled to launch in April 2007 so the next few months were a blur of selling our house, Chris working his notice and getting to grips with being new parents!

Time together

Everything has settled down now, and we’re into a good routine. I love being a mum while also working on the business part time. For Chris, the biggest benefit is that he’s been able to spend more time with our son – before he was out of the house for 13 hours a day in his job as an account director for an advertising agency and so would have seen very little of him from Monday to Friday. Now, even though Chris starts work very early at around 5.30am, he’s usually home by early afternoon. And my commute is to the office at the end of the garden – even shorter than the school run!

Show business

In summer, we do a lot of local shows which is one of the best ways to get new customers. Almost all of the shows are at weekends, meaning you have to be prepared to work on Saturdays and Sundays. It is vital for us to keep meeting potential new customers to grow the business and the shows are a great way to do this as customers can see our fantastic produce and talk to us about which box will suit them best. Of course, you have to remember to stay focused on your existing customers too, particularly around holiday periods when a lot of people go away and put their orders on hold. The main thing is to ensure you regularly stay in touch with all of your customers in some way as it makes them feel valued and reminds them that we’re here.

One of the things we’ve learnt over the last few years is that customer retention is just as important as acquisition, because it’s harder to acquire new customers than satisfy the ones you already have. So we, and the farm, work extremely hard to keep our existing customers happy.

Well supported

We’ve had a lot of support from Riverford head office from day one. They’ve helped us with everything from setting up the business to our initial launch campaign, which included PR and leafleting. In our first delivery week we had just 60 deliveries to make. We’ve now got 500+ per week, with plans for further expansion.

Loyalty matters

We did really well in our first couple of years, and had excellent growth. Now we’re going through a period of slower growth but I’m pleased to say we have a really solid and loyal customer base. There are a lot of customers we’ve got to know quite well, which is one of the best things about being a Riverford franchisee – the fantastic people you meet. When we’re doing shows, customers we’ve never met face-to-face often come up and introduce themselves, which is lovely. You really feel like you’re a part of the community, and people notice when you go the extra mile.

From passion to profit

Riverford started out as a small family business, and it’s refreshing that they’ve managed to maintain that family feel. The staff members at head office are fantastic too – if we can’t speak to a customer for any reason, somebody at the Home Farm will handle the call and they provide holiday cover for our emails and phone calls. The website and all of the marketing materials are produced and managed centrally, which frees Chris me and up to get on with the business of delivering the produce and developing our business locally.