THE ups and downs of running a successful businesses in rural Denbighshire is the topic for a new book.
Part of the Gwasg Carreg Gwalch series Syniad Da (Good Idea), Busnes ar y Buarth (Business on the Farmyard) tells the story of Gareth and Falmai Roberts and their successful yoghurt business Llaeth y Llan / Village Dairy.
From humble beginnings on the yard of Tal-y-bryn farm, Llannefydd, the pair have built up an instantly-recognisable brand that has a significant presence in shops and supermarkets throughout Wales and further afield.
These days, diversification is one of the buzzwords of the farming industry, and more and more farmers are having to find new ways of sustaining their livelihood.
But 25 years ago when Mr and Mrs Roberts first began to diversify, it was a much rarer event.
“There’s a well-known saying ‘necessity is the mother of invention’, and that was the truth in our case,” said Mr Roberts.
“When Falmai gave up her work to have our son Owain, we had no choice but to find some way of generating more profit from our dairy farming business.
“We started out on quite a traditional route, by taking on a milk round in the Llannefydd area, and it grew from there.”
The milk round developed into milk processing to producing skimmed milk and cream and eventually producing yoghurt from the excess skimmed milk they had on their hands.
Nowadays, Llaeth y Llan has a significant presence in some of the supermarkets which threatened its livelihood all those years ago, with over 70 per cent of its yoghurt pots being exported to England.
Did they ever foresee this scale of success?
“Our aim was simply to eke out a living - I was a country lad and our aim was simply to live a traditional rural life as well as we could,” said Mr Roberts.
“We never had any great dream of becoming entrepreneurs and running a big complicated business of the kind Llaeth y Llan is today.
“Who could have dreamed back then that a cowshed and a milk round would grow into a substantial milk factory that’s still expanding?”
With his son Owain now at the helm and Mr and Mrs Roberts taking a well-deserved back seat in the day-to-day running of the business, Mr Roberts is philosophical about the route to success:
“A successful business is a bit like a snowball on top of a hill,” he said.
“One small nudge, and it starts to move.
“As it rolls down the hill, it gets bigger and bigger and the only control you have over it is whether it moves to the right or the left, to avoid any obstacles likely to hamper its progress.”
With many anecdotes like this, personal photographs and an engaging way with words, this book is a great read for all those interested in small businesses and the future of rural Wales.
Busnes ar y Buarth is available from local bookshops and gwales.com priced at £4.75.