Brit cereals go Statesside
Dorset Cereals' fresh approach to breakfast foods has caught the attention of the Home Grown Cereals Authority (HGCA). The group awarded the firm an enterprise award, which provided £25,000 funding for the company to embark on a new export project in the US. The award is designed to promote innovative uses of UK grain and support the development of new markets. Dorset Cereals' three-year export project hopes to generate significant extra grain usage.
The company is keen for a share of the US muesli market, which reported sales of 47,000t in 2005. Exports of breakfasts from the UK to the US climbed 322% to £3.4M in the same year.
Md Peter Farquhar explains that running his own business enables him to avoid the "bureaucratic treacle" workers face when they work for large manufacturers.
Dorset Cereals believes its unconventional approach to new product development has given it the edge on competitors. While the company uses e-databases to drum up new ideas - it recently sent out a detailed questionnaire to 6,000 consumers and received 2,000 responses in a matter of days - it takes consumers' opinions with a generous pinch of salt. "You don't have to be too anal and you haven't got to do loads of research," says Farquhar.
In the past, he has asked consumers their thoughts on pineapple in cereals, but received a mixed response. "Pineapple is a bit of a Marmite ingredient - some people love it and some hate it." But regardless of some consumers' dislike of the fruit, the firm went ahead and added pineapple to its cereal. "We would have made poor decisions if we'd always followed consumers," he says.
While he admits that Dorset's ingredients aren't all locally sourced, Farquhar denies that the company's name misleads consumers. "Despite the growth of global warming, most consumers understand that you can't get Brazil nuts in Dorset," he said. "We go British until we can't find any more suppliers." The firm hopes to do business with the Dorset Blueberry Company in the future, but for the time being, the latter only deals with fresh produce.
