Eddie Andrew of Our Cow Molly, a family farm near Dungworth at the edge of the Peak District, explains why specialising in quality ice cream was a crucially important business decision.

What was the basis of your decision to market ice cream first and foremost and when did you decide?
In 1947 my grandad Hector Andrew started our dairy farm. We went into ice cream in 2007. For all the milk we didn’t sell fresh to Sheffield families, we were being offered 1p per litre less than it cost us to produce.

Supermarkets are holding dairy farmers to ransom. Currently over a million litres of milk are being imported EACH DAY as raw milk and if pasteurised in the UK can be sold as a product of the UK. French farmers, for example, get paid a subsidy from their government to produce milk, so it’s actually cheaper for the supermarkets to import it than buy ours. It’s not even law to put on labels saying where that product originated from. Realising there was little we could do to stop the imports, we looked into adding value to our milk.

We looked at the MINTEL report and the only side of the ice cream market that was growing was the premium sector; and we had the massive advantage of not having to buy in milk and cream, meaning we could afford to use the best quality ingredients and fruits in Our Cow Molly dairy ice cream.

Was there a significant capital outlay?
Massive!!! And it’s still ongoing as the business grows. We started selling from our cottage porch then had a small shop in the yard and on June 6th this year we opened our bright pink ice cream parlour that was custom-made just for us – and we’re so proud of it!

Thankfully we never lose sight of the fact it’s the lovely people of Sheffield who supported our family business and made it all possible.

We try to buy everything we can from Sheffield – e.g., Crown Label stickers, Coates Signs graphics and banners and others – so the local economy benefits when people buy a tub of our ice cream, not just us.

Did you receive any external help or advice and if so from whom?
I wanted to make the best quality ice cream possible so rather than using a standard recipe, we had Juliano, who has made ice cream for over 40 years in Italy and works for the biggest flavour house in Italy, fly over for a couple of days to work on our recipe. But even he struggled with the richness of our cows’ milk; milk is much more watery in Italy.

We then had to employ a chemist to balance Juliano’s recipe scientifically. It’s basically a radical Italian ice cream recipe. When we thought we were ready, we made several batches and invited our local village to decide which variation we should go with.

How many work at OCM and do they specialise or do they pool tasks?
That sounds far too organised for us!! Originally, I made the ice cream and then Madeline (my wife) sold it from our house porch while looking after our newborn. On days I didn’t make ice cream, I delivered what I’d made into Sheffield.

Now Kathryn, my sister-in-law, runs the shop and my best friend Matt makes ice cream, helped on a couple of days by Dave who also works in the milk dairy.

I do outside events – anything from 50 people at a wedding to 35,000 visitors attending Tramlines Festival. Dealing with invoices, marketing, emails and the like is all my job and I keep the equipment going too (my trade is actually as an agricultural engineer).

Dad looks after the dairy herd and the milking. My brother Dan processes the milk and delivers it to our customers doorsteps, as does my Mum but she also does the farm accounts. My youngest brother Chris is an electrician and this has saved us a small fortune!

What other product lines has OCM been promoting and what processes are involved?
We have 120 lambs each year which we sell to our shop customers. We also have an open invitation every spring for children to come and visit the lambs and bottle-feed them. Hundreds of children visit and we’re always clear to them that the animals are being grown for food and the simple truth is that if they don’t buy one when they’re ready, there would be no point us having any to bottle-feed next year.

We also sell my Uncle’s Yorkshire Highland Beef and Venison from Round Green Farm in Barnsley all year round.

What lessons have you learned along the way?
I think one of the most important things is that whatever you’re selling food-wise, if someone has never tried it before, they will buy according to what the packaging looks like. So don’t skimp when it comes to graphic design.

(By the end of this article, you will understand just how much of a family business we are – our graphic designer is Paul from Gaia Design and he is also my brother-in-law!)

Some funny errors … don’t put ice cream in plastic tubs that aren’t freezer proof (they shatter!) … Guinness Ice cream isn’t nice!

How do you try to encourage customers to come back as regulars?
We’re well into social media. Nothing’s better than tweeting a photo of a calf that just been born or a new flavour of ice cream as its being made!

• Become a fan: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/pages/Our-Cow-Molly/214705881697
• Follow us: http://www.twitter.com/OurCowMolly
• Website: http://www.ourcowmolly.co.uk

We have a deluxe range of ice cream that’s only available at the farm and are always adding flavours, with another five new ones coming before Christmas!

We love to run big events and are so lucky to be able to. Only five miles from the city, free parking and a bus stop are available. It’s so much easier to hold events here than in town. We’ve hosted the biggest food market of the Sheffield Food Festival week, broken Guinness world records (see clip below) and let children drive our tractors.

We had a really successful weekend of fundraising for the Sheffield Children’s Hospital, reaching £1,700 despite driving rain all weekend!

Bonfire night this year we had a family bonfire with almost 1,000 people enjoying Dave’s Karaoke road show, a barbecue and beers from Bradfield brewery. The highlight was the Sheffield Fire Museum doing 303 laps of the farm giving everyone fire engine rides.

We have big plans for this summer!!!!!!!!!

Do you have a loyal hardcore of customers? If so, how much of your custom do you think they constitute?
I would say at least 50% or more of our customers are now our friends. Word of mouth is the best promotion we can get.

How do you handle distribution?
We use HACCAP approved boxes and are saving up for a freezer delivery van.

We deliver it all ourselves and put it in the freezer for shops, it’s a personal touch that you just don’t get from a delivery driver.

What do you think OCM “does best”?
I would hope it’s customer service, and going the extra mile. As a rule, if people make the trip up to the farm on a day we’re not open, we try to accommodate by opening up the shop for them.

We’re just a working farm inviting folk to come and see what goes on. If that means they get to see a calf being born, then that’s what happens. You just never know what you might see!

We also do the best ice cream we possibly can and people seem to like it! (I can personally vouch for that! – Business Posts Editor)

Are you thinking of expanding the business further in any way?
We’re really happy with the way people love our ice cream, partly because it’s a Sheffield product, so we’re going to try to get Sheffielders insisting on Our Cow Molly milk everywhere from Sheffield Schools to Our Cow Molly Milk Lattes in Starbucks. Exiting times!

Where do you see the company in five years time?
Definitely still refusing to supply the supermarkets with OCM but championing local independent shops and small producers, Hopefully being better known for producing a fantastic quality milk and cream too, after all that’s why the ice creams so good! Being a bit more organised and running lots more school trips would be good too.

Given the anticipated severity of proposed public spending cuts from 2011 onwards, how do you view the future of local businesses – as opposed to chain stores and supermarkets – in that context?
We’re really lucky milk is a staple and that during bad times it doesn’t suffer much. On the flip side, our ice cream is a luxury product and people still have their little luxuries even in the credit crunch. Like I say, we’re lucky.

I suppose we offer great value too. A family can visit our farm for free any time we’re open and look at all the animals, watch cows being fed or milked and then go home without spending a penny; we don’t mind.

When you shop locally, it’s more likely to come back to you. If you spend money at a supermarket, it goes to their shareholders. Have you ever been served by a supermarket owner who knows your name? … Exactly!

Would you ever be happy with one of the major chain stores asking you to supply them?
We have been asked by a supermarket chain to stock Our Cow Molly in every branch in Sheffield. They wanted to have our brand logo on the front window of every store – but also wanted to be the only place we supplied it. This would have meant selling twice as much ice cream and only one delivery, an accountant’s dream no doubt! But that would have meant dropping all the small corner shops and cafes who had supported us from day one.

Nothing to date has given me more pleasure than turning them down, adding that we would rather supply the independent shops at either side!

Quality food isn’t available in a supermarket, it’s massed produced. 21-day matured beef from the supermarket spends three weeks in its little cling-film wrapped packet so they can call it “21-day matured” – A CON!

It should be HUNG as a carcass for 21 days to mature in a fridge then butchered into its specific cut. Come our try our Yorkshire Highland Beef and, in the words of bland supermarket food specialists,”TASTE THE DIFFERENCE”.

The farmer agrees a price for his next years’ carrots from the supermarket, plants his seeds, grows his carrots and sends in his first load. The supermarket needs 10 suppliers, so they arrange contracts with 20 before they renegotiate the price downwards – playing one farmer off against the other so that the farmers’ choice is either to take the lower price or let the carrots rot in the ground.

Trading Standards has been fighting to put an ombudsman in place to police the supermarkets’ illegal bad practice; chain stores are just monsters.

Eddie concluded with this message
I WOULD JUST LIKE TO THANK EVERYONE FOR SUPPORTING OUR FAMILY BUSINESS!

Our Cow Molly is:

• Winner of: “Favourite Family Friendly Food Operation” Eat Sheffield Awards 2010.
• Winner of: “Best Made in Sheffield Brand” Exposed Awards 2009/2010
• Guinness World Record: “Fastest  Time To Make 1l of Ice Cream” 10.34 Seconds using Our Cow Molly.

Eddie, thanks for giving such a fantastic interview!