Horseradish terror storms the aisles

TERRORIST tactics - taking people by surprise, picking off the opposition and being quick to react - may not seem the most likely strategy for a family-based cottage business which churns out bottled sauces and mustards.

But for Alison and James Horne, who have built one of the UK's most successful entrepreneurial food companies from humble beginnings, the tactics have worked. Their company CCL Foods, formerly known as Cottage Cooking, now supplies Tesco and Sainsbury with own-brand products, and famous chefs come to consult Alison, the brains behind the recipes and formerly personal chef to Lord Rothschild, for tips. And they have just joined forces with venture capital company 3i to expand the company. "We want to be the biggest and we want to be the best, and we are going to be," says James. They are on course; year-on-year since the company started to grow in 1994, turnover has nearly doubled.

How did it all come about? Quite by accident. The couple began selling Alison's horseradish mustard in the mid-Eighties after enthusiastic feedback from friends. "Alison made up the recipe and did all the labelling, and put it all in a wicker basket," says her husband. "She went to a Colchester delicatessen and a couple of farmhouses, and by lunchtime she'd sold it all and was absolutely thrilled to see how easy it was."

Taking it a step further, the couple bought a small quantity of glass bottles, which James - at the time, working in Shell's marketing department - carried by hand on the train home from London Bridge. "It was a Women's Institute set-up," he recalls wryly. "We couldn't afford the cost of the carriage; it's surprisingly difficult to get small quantities of bottles." They began doing the rounds of craft and agricultural shows at weekends. "We trawled East Anglia selling it, in between trying to look after our two children. Craft shows were a phenomenon that seemed to come out of the recession: a lot of people were redundant and were making their own thing."

One of the lessons the Hornes learnt was to listen to feedback from the public. "You got to know your customers and could try out your recipes. One of the beauties of horseradish mustard is that people who don't like mustard - who say it's too hot - like this one because it's honey- based," says James.

Another lesson was that there was money to be made in niche marketing. "We paid the school fees in a weekend if we had a good show," he recalls. But the avenues of distribution gradually became saturated as competitors caught on. It was time for the Hornes to move on: they began exhibiting at international food shows, ironically attracting business from UK representativeswho would come to chat with fellow Britons. "The way we have built the company is by demonstrating to people that we are much larger than we are by taking large stands. That facade has always amused us," says James.

The couple moved into Alison's parents' farmhouse and began expanding their staff of part-time multi-tasking workers, mainly women and many of them related: workers' loyalty, James notes, has been a strong factor in their success.

Identifying that the independent sector - small corner shops and individual supermarkets - was declining, the couple also turned their attention to larger players. "We noticed it was much more difficult to get space on the shelves," he says. "You have to come up with something different. But the large companies take a year to develop something; Alison could get it done in two months. We have structured the business around being flexible. I refer to us as marketing terrorists: we have to take people by surprise and we're quick to react to an opportunity."

One such tactic was turning the company into a plc. "We are not actually listed on the stock market," says James, "but you can go for it if you have strength in share capital, and a lot more people take us seriously. I did it for marketing reasons, and it's worked extremely well."

Allies, he says, are also crucial: "We have an associate company in Carolina, and we share recipes with them. And we started doing own-label products for Sainsbury and they were absolutely marvellous asking us to put in place quality control systems to help us keep the necessary standards. It was obviously in their interests we got it right, but they very much held our hands in the early days."

His wife, particularly, is in demand for her innovative ideas. "A huge number of people now come to meet Alison and ask her to develop certain products. It's terribly easy for her: in the middle of the night, something will come to her and she wakes up and writes it down. She can be given a recipe and she'll take one look and say 'Fine for immediate consumption, but you're putting it into a bottle with a 12-month shelf life? You must make it taste as if it's fresh'.

"She's a marvellous saleslady. If a supermarket says 'I don't like it' she will say 'Why?' She speaks with great passion about her product and will quite often change people's minds or develop the product with them."

The future looks bright for CCL. It now has a former chief executive of several food companies, Chris Ball, on board as an adviser; with 3i's investment, the company is set to grow in its chosen niche market. "We are not interested in becoming a commodity manufacturer," says James. "We take a product and say 'How can we add value and innovate with that and give the customer something interesting to consider?'"