Evolution, Quality & Building A Potato Empire. Tom Keogh (Keogh's Crisps)

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That's www.outsourcedirect.ie This episode is brought to you by Neurodiversity Ireland, a charity dedicated to promoting a deeper understanding of neurodiversity and advocating for the rights of individuals with conditions like autism, ADHD and dyslexia. Through community support, educational programs and awareness initiatives, Neurodiversity Ireland empowers individuals with these conditions to thrive in our society. You can help make a difference too. Visit neurodiversityarlin.com to learn how you can get involved, whether through volunteering, donating or participating in their events. Every action counts towards creating a more inclusive world. Check out Neurodiversity Ireland today. We've made a great start. Basically, if you look at all of those products, they're very much differentiated when it comes to what's available in the local markets. You taste carigal butter, that's carigal butter, you know straight away. You drink a point of game, you know that's a point of game. Jamsam whiskey, you'll recognise Jamsam whiskey. Yeah, you taste a kiosk crisp, you'll recognise kiosk crisp, over anything that's in the market here in Ireland, but also overseas. Yeah, and once you have that in food, that's a really strong position to be in. Hello and welcome to the Irish Business Builders podcast. My name is Connor Carney and the voice you've just heard belongs to Tom Kioh, founder and managing director at Kioh's Farm, which you'll recognise as the maker of the now famous Kioh's potato crisps. Tom joined what was then the family potato farm in the year 2000, and having come through an immensely difficult period in the fresh potato business, decided to redirect the company towards a less homogenous product offering. Crisps. Since then, the Kioh's brand has become the largest Irish owned brand of potato crisps in the country and exports to many more places around the world. In this chat, you'll hear Tom's thoughts about running a business for the long term. How the limitations of your business are set only by the limitations of your own mind and Tom's vision for making Kioh's the next great Irish brand. Synonymous with such household names, as Guinness, Kerry Gold and James and Whiskey. I started our conversation by asking Tom about how Kioh's farm got started. We're a family business based out in the rich fair to our lands of North County Dublin. We've been there a long time, at least 200 years. I think the earliest document we've ever found of the family farming on the site where we are today was a land tax or a tides paid to the local church dating back to 1833. I think so. So there are all the other records. I think we're born to the GPO as part of most of our history back in 1921. There's not a whole lot of it, but we have that tides paid. By Tom's Kioh, same name as myself and Katzmann Kioh back in 1833. So there are a while. You name it if we could roll it on Ireland and make money selling it into the local markets in Dublin City, that's what we did. So my family for generations have been market directorization in North County Dublin. Even in my short period, tomatoes, sprouts, cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli. I remember broccoli arriving as the new super frasica back to the early 1990s. We've grown, and potatoes are probably part of what we do. So fast forward to today and this tree main business areas. Number one is obviously the farming side. So the family farm has been 400 acres of potatoes and it's focused solely on potatoes today. We rotate land with serial growers and vegetable growers around the area in North County Dublin. Then we have also about 30 to 40 growers around Ireland who would grow potatoes for the next part of our business, which is the fresh pack business. So the fresh pack business basically is the Kioh potatoes that you would see in supermarkets around Ireland. And we would sell it on the Kioh brand and also on the older wholesale brand Peter Kionson's cream crop. We had about 10% of the national consumption of potatoes. We'll go through that fresh produce business. And the last stage as Kioh's crisps is what people have come to know us for today is obviously the crisp business. And we always laugh and people say to us, "My God, you guys, you do potatoes too." That's what started the whole thing. So the snack food business, we produce strachocrysps, clinical crisps and also popcorn, started popcorn in 2018. And we were about 13-14% to the Irish market. We supply about 20 countries overseas. And today exports account for about a third of our total value. And they're growing quite quickly. We're the only Irish owned brand and manufacturer of potato crisps in the Republic of Ireland. You know, very proud of that fact. It started in 2011 and it's, you know, it's become an Irish favorite. Tell me just a little bit about the history. You mentioned there, broccoli, you had that came in in the early 90s. Is that not sure the word that you said, but this was a new, broccoli was a new thing? Broccoli is a very recent edition. So I remember my father growing an ayunko growing a patch of this new, what looked like cabbage, but wasn't cabbage in the corner of a field and the family farm and it was broccoli. So it was very one of the early adapters there in broccoli. Okay, interesting. And so it's been there for 200 years. Thomas Kio was a great, great, great. Would it be in. We'll go back again. Yeah, yeah, a few generations. Great, great. So it's, I mean, that document is just before the Irish famine. Got a time not to put a day in around the whole thing, but do you know anything about that period? I do. There's actually a bit of literature that was brought to our attention. There's a book called, the book's title is actually called Strong Farmer. It's written about agriculture in Ireland, but it's very interesting in that there's a section in it and talks about farming in North County Dublin. And it actually mentions and describes a field of potatoes during the famine that never caught blight and on our family farm where it is positioned today. And it says that it fed the population in the local area in North County Dublin, that field. Yeah, so it's in that book. So that's, yeah, little anecdote. Yeah, well, yeah, because it seems that. Well, there must be some continuity there to have it before it to be a potato farmer before the famine and after. Yeah. So no, it's interesting. How did you join the business initially? Was it always, it's a family business. So was it always, was it always the case that you were joined? Was it always the case? I think it's similar. We were working on the family farm from the age of eight years old, literally. You know, we'd just jump out of bed in the morning, you know, school holidays on our nation go to work with dad, you know, and we'd be out in the fields, you know, helping to cut cabbage, cauliflower, one of my earliest memories in the farm is actually picking sprouts. And I remember Brussels, the Brussels bro plans being the same height as me and me picking them directly off the stem. So Brussels bro is probably about my waist height, the plant. So it gives an idea. We were exposed to that from a very early age, you know, and it was, it was an incredibly experience, and you know, really enjoyable childhood. Did you then, I mean, after school, did you, did you decide, this is exactly what I want to do? It was just a foreground conclusion. I suppose it probably was a foreground conclusion. I think my parents, as probably most parents do, is they try to, you know, make sure that I try to get experience in other areas. So I went to second year school in Gorms and college and came to me. It's fantastic college. And, you know, really focused on sports, did really enjoy it there. And then went into UCD to do ag science. And I suppose it was after a couple of weeks in the UCD and ag science, I kind of realized this was not for me, you know, just very much science focused, et cetera. And, you know, I really just want to get out of work, you know, so I think I failed every single exam in my first year in ag science in the UCD. And I came back home and started working on the family farm. And went back to college with nice because obviously, I want to continue on there and get some qualifications. And that was this, probably, that was probably red 1998, 1999. Do you think you learn more practically speaking rather than in a kind of classroom environment? I think everybody's different in that approach, but definitely from I have learned myself that I need to do it to learners. Yeah. And I have, you know, done a lot of education at nice and your professional education since courses, et cetera. And I have found, I find it extremely interesting because I can apply it in my business, you know, and that's, or I find that addictive, you know, and every year and now going back and doing more and more and more and encouraging all the team around me to do the same. Yeah. Did you know, I mean, how did you end up becoming the managing director then of the business? Was that was hardly day one, but? No, well, I suppose, my dad was always there, running the business and so that that's always a very loose structure there, always very loose structure. You know, you kind of, everybody just worked hard and kind of had to come a goal and things started to work out. But I suppose it was when I started the Chris business, Kills Chris back in 2011, you know, that was a separate venture. It was a new enterprise and that really was kind of the start of a more professional approach to management and strategy, et cetera, and around that business where it was going. And, you know, today that business employees were probably employing in totally better 170 people on the site, but that business alone probably employees better 130 of that, you know, so it's a quite a large piece of the family pie. So why did you start that business then in 2011? What was the basis for it and the idea behind it? Well, I suppose one of the main reasons behind it was the fact that per date was sales in Ireland fresh per date of consumption between 2000 and 2010 fell by about 50 percent. Yeah, huge decline. And obviously being being per date of growers and at that stage we were selling fresh per date to the retailers. Something had to be done about it. And it was, I suppose it was the initial, that was the initial reason we branded the family business Kills. And that was, that was a very interesting process because back then family brands weren't a thing and especially in fresh produce. You know, there was nothing like Kills around back then. And we interacted with Borbia and there was a branding, a branding agency from London actually actually helped us to come up with that brand, the Kills brand. A very interesting process and they spent a couple of some days with us and after that they just said to us guys, you know, all you need to do is tell your story. You know, we're paid to make up stories for businesses and build brands. You guys are living a brand. We just need to tell your story. And that was a very innovative approach back then. Yeah. And led to us developing the Kills brand and the potato packaging and you know, the family images and the packaging, all this type of stuff. And it was groundbreaking back then. You know, you did not see a picture of a farmer in a retailer. You know, that just wasn't done. And to actually go to a point where you were heroing the producer of the product was a change in thinking. Yeah. And it resonated with the Irish consumer. Yeah. So that whole rebranding on the potato business was done to try recover potato sales and leading on from that then I saw the opportunity for a premium potato crisp brand. You could see it in the in the UK. There was the emergence of the this premiumization trend in potato crisps. And there was a couple of brands over there that started to do quite well. And I suppose they were starting to get traction in the Irish market. I said, my god, yeah, we need to we need to stop this. We need to we need to bring out an Irish competitor here. Yeah, try try protect our market here. So that was one of the reasons. And that led me on a journey, probably took three to four years. I knew nothing about potato crisps. Literally stepped off a tractor and jumped on to a plane and started flying in the world and finding out how to make the best potato crisps. Took me back a little bit to this branding thing. Yeah. And putting your family images on the packaging and doing all of that going through the process. How would you have tried to differentiate your product prior to this this branding? I mean, potatoes are potatoes, right? When you used to walk into a supermarket is that was it once you sold it in that was that was the end of it. You didn't really have any control. Yeah, it's it's a great question. And and for us as a family, we always focused on quality as the differentiation. Now, everybody in food will say that to you. Yeah, but for us, it was almost like a religion. Yeah, we lived and breathed every day. And we existed because we were the best. We knew that and we had to focus on that every day. So everything we did was all about getting that extra few percent at every stage of your process from playing a field to putting that product on the consumers place. And developing that that competitive difference in quality. And we sold that into into local markets. And we were supplying a lot of the Irish retailers or true our wholesale product from the farm. You would never see it as the farmer's product. And by recognising we have a competitive advantage in quality. And by then putting a brand on that and marketing it marketing it correctly. That's what eventually led to the success of that fresh produce brand. Yeah. And that carried into snacks. When I think about something like potatoes, I think for me, from an outside of looking and I think very difficult business. We were supposed to have this conversation a few weeks back. And we couldn't do it because you were waiting on the harvest. And you said just before we started that you're always worried this time of year. There's a kind of large capital requirements needed to start producing them. And then obviously with the focus on quality, you've been able to differentiate yourself. But prior to that, that was a challenge too. Being able to differentiate yourself, the market. Is potatoes a hard business? Without the branding, without everything else, is it a difficult thing to produce? They are. I said, "Yo, it was easy. Everybody will be doing it." But the reality is in the background, I suppose there is a quiet crisis in potatoes. And I think in agriculture in general in Ireland, I think today, I remember looking at numbers last year, but there is about 90% less potatoes growers in this country than there was back in the 1990s. So there has been a huge decline in the amount of people who are producing potatoes here. Vegetable production is even worse. Yeah. So, and when you actually look at those numbers, the amount of people who are doing this under the age of 50, it's probably difficult to make a football team out of them. So, there is a crisis in this country around young people entering the agricultural sector. And nobody's talking about it, but it's gone to come home to rest. And I think it is something that government itself needs to be doing more about to actually get more young people into agriculture. Because there is nobody there. And if we don't do something about it, we will lose our food security, especially around the fresh produce that we can produce so well in this country. So that's number one. Potatoes, they are a difficult crop to grow. Very much capital intensive. If you were to buy a potato harvest during the morning, it would cost you between 750 and 1.2 million. There, incredibly expansive machinery. Yeah. A tractor today, a standard tractor that would actually do some work is about 190,000 euro. So, capital investment in agriculture is huge. And it's becoming very, very specialist. The environment, the weather patterns have played a huge part in the industry in the last number of years. Last year was probably one of the most difficult years on record. We had record prices in the sector as a result of which lowest yields ever. And that not only did that affect Ireland, it affected the UK and all of mainland Europe. It was the perfect storm. And that was primarily driven by climate. So there's a lot of different factors that are coming into play today that are making it very, very difficult to do. Labor is probably another one we should talk about because getting access to labor for the agricultural sector is extremely difficult. The people just aren't there anymore. Everybody's working in the while working in the cities, etc. Very few people working in agriculture and especially fresh produce. Really difficult to man. Has demand gone down? Like I suppose the difficulties in supplying it. But has demand gone down? Personally, and it's a completely anecdotal, I'm eating more potatoes than ever. But is that the same all over Ireland? The demand for potatoes. Well, believe it enough, the numbers are there and you can start to see it. We brand the business to Ciro's back in 2007. And in around 2011, you started to see the market stabilizing. And a lot of good stuff happening at the time. There was a huge focus on the product quality. And it wasn't just us. It was across the market. There was a big focus on consistency. Number one, because one thing that people started to recognize was that the potato is not competing with other potatoes. The potato is competing with uncle Ben's or Dan Mio's. Things that you can put in a over-nourished microwave and press a button and it's ready in a set amount of time and it's exactly the same. To get a fresh product, to do that in every single kitchen all around the country, every single evening is really difficult. But that's what the sector has been striving to do. It's very important. Tell me just a little bit about, you know, you said that you stepped off a tractor and went around the world trying to find out the best way to make the highest quality crisps. Was exporting a big part of the plan and the strategy from the stars are what way did the kind of crisps brand start? I suppose export was a dream. And it's probably a dream I've had from a very old age working on the family firm. Wouldn't it be amazing if we could grow something here in these soils, do something with it and export all over the world. And it was kind of something that was always in the back of my mind and always something I would like to do. And with potato crisps, I seen that opportunity. And when I started that business though, I think the aspirations were very low. I literally, I remember going into Bank of Ireland in Swords with the Forest Business Plan, looking for a loan. And literally my business plan was to go to farmers markets around Ireland, you know, in a little van selling these potato crisps that I was cooking on the family farm. And that was kind of what I saw myself doing for at least the first five years in the business. But an actual fact, what happened was that, you know, we started to hit a note with the Irish consumer and the product quality differentiation over what was available in the Irish market was so much that it started to click and it started to click very early. I remember starting with supercran in I think was 2012. And I remember the buyer telling me after I think it was the first six to nine nine months that we were the second biggest selling product on their island promotions only second to Coca-Cola, which was absolutely incredible. But it really resonated because you had, you would kill potatoes on the shelf. And the snack food aisles were all controlled by all the big multi-nationales, etc. And so I couldn't get space there. So I had to put my crisps in the potato section in the stores. And I, little wooden stands and put them in the potato sections in the stores beside our potatoes. And the consumer was walking in and they were saying, "Kills potatoes and kills crisps from the same farm side by side." I think it's the first time it's been done in the world. And it just resonated and clicked and off it went. And then once it started to work in supercran, then obviously other retailers, they're buying all their data. They can see what the markets what's happening in the market. They could see that we were actually making real inroads. And that started to open doors. And it kind of went from there. And is that, I mean, so I can see from maybe from an Irish perspective, you see the producer, you see an Irish brand and you see the potatoes and you can see, God, this is all coming from the same place. Has that been the same in other markets that you've gone to all around the world? Every market's different as we've learned over the years. And in some cases, the consumer there just might be looking for something different. And market research will tell us that when the consumer visits the snack category in retailers that they are always looking for something new and interesting. And when we go into a marketplace, generally speaking, we will get our first sale on that, oh, here's something new, that looks good, packaging looks good, great, take the box, kiosks and a lot of people can't pronounce it, it's kioge or it's kioge or it's, well, it looks interesting and they'll try it. And that's their chance. You get one chance to make a first impression. And once we can deliver that quality difference in that pack to that consumer, they'll come back and buy us again. And that's what we've done. So we've gone into lots of markets around the world. We'll get an opportunity with a retailer and we'll mind it like a baby and we'll get it working, get it turning, get the rate of sale increasing, increasing. Today, just to give an example, there's a retailer in America called World Markets, they're 270 stores, coast to coast. Today we are the biggest selling but at a Chris product in all their stores, all across America. Incredible. You're in cascos, that, right? We do seasonal in and out with cascos. Okay, I'm just interested in the casco story but I'm wondering from a supplier side, do they put a lot of pressure from a price perspective on you? And by the way, this is just a total mykeryosity. Well, generally speaking with the retailer, they will have their margin expectations that they need to achieve. There will be a set or SP on a shelf and we make a war without et cetera based on the bag size, et cetera. But even RSP, you need to hit, you have a retailer margin, you need to hit, you've got logistics need to account for, you might have local tax and tariffs you need to account for. And then you work out where the fake money added or not and then off you go. With the likes of a casco, you have huge huge retailer. I remember that that's the senior buyer from casco came over to Ireland and visited the firm and I was what I had the more contribute but data feels is just incredible. And the lady said I was 10 or a bit of a data crop and 10 or the story a bit of the firm and she said she was buying 750 million dollars worth of potato chips. herself. That was three cars of a billion yours worth of potato chips. The total average market is worth 100 million. And there was one customer and one retailer in America buying almost a billion dollars worth. It's incredible. So there's the world's a big place and it's full of opportunity. Tell me then about your, a little bit about your journey because you came into the family business, you had these ideas and clearly they've worked out for you. Has there been a difficult period in the business? From the outside looking in, it looks great, very successful, brilliant brand. It's all over the place. You're in America, you're in all these other countries but there must have been some difficult points in that journey for you. There has been lots of challenges but for all good challenges. The hardest thing we did was in form was the time that went super quick and minute receivership. That was a really tough time. I think that was around 2012, something like that. At the time we were supplying all the potatoes to supercrain. They were a bay, almost 70% of the total fresh produce thrown over the business. And yeah, they went into receivership, gone and we were owed a huge, metamoei, huge. And I suppose not only were we owed the money, we also lost the listings. So we had a business that I suppose that the turnover was reduced by probably 80% following that. So not only were we carrying bad debts, we also didn't have the turn over to try, recover and trade out of it. And I suppose it was, we were very lucky in that there was no, we had no debts in the business ourselves. My dad over the years has been fantastic as he developed the business. You earn it and then you pay it out. That was the approach. Yeah, there wasn't debts on the business. So you wait until you had the money and then you went and then you went and did the activity or bought the machine or built the building. And that's all is true. That's all is true. But it probably took, probably took the best part for you to six years to recover back out of that. I have to say that I think we had developed the brand just a couple of years before that happened. And it was, it was actually the power of that brand and the fact that it was working with your original consumer that brought the business through that because the consumer wanted their product. And if we didn't have that, probably wouldn't be here today. You mentioned that you've done a lot of professional education and things like that since joining the business and that you love it. Has that been a help to you over time and through these, well, such difficult times that you just described? It has. Yes. I think always working in, I suppose, the business as it stands, it probably leads me at a disadvantage in that I don't have the experience of working with the businesses. A lot of people in my position may have gone off and worked for a KPNG or an EYE for four or five years before they actually would have went back and ran a family business or they would have worked in other areas. For me, it was just put the head down and grow the family business. So I don't have that outside experience. But I suppose on the flip side of that, it has probably given me an opportunity to do a lot of things the way I would like to do them. And I don't think I've ever realized that. I'm only starting to realize that today that we've actually developed a completely different way of doing that. But we only did that because we actually didn't realize that everybody else does it this way. So there's a lot of that that exists today in our business. The professional education and every year I'd go off and do a course somewhere. It definitely has helped build the skills within me to bring the business to where it is today and overcome a lot of the challenges. And I suppose, true that as well, there's a huge opportunity in network and meet other business owners and managing directors and people in our sector all around the world. And I have found that hugely helpful in driving the business on. And I think probably true as Moses when he spent time with these people, that are a lot further down the track than you are or maybe run in bigger businesses. And when you get to talks and a bit of their challenges, they're all the same. They probably just have bigger zeros at the end of the course. It really does help. So it's something that I really enjoy and a lot of the team in the business, they do the same every year. Can you mean the example of something that you took away from one of these groups are learnings and brought it back to the business? Oh yeah. Well, to use one example, I think the number of years back, I did that leadership for growth course with Interpas Ireland. And that's run by a yes, a Barcelona incredible course. But as part of that course, the participants do eventually develop a growth strategy for the business. And for me, I suppose developing a business strategy was one thing, but what I found for myself, it was actually developing that business vision. Because I had just I'd set up a business and you know, we're going to make crisps great and we're going to deal with some of the ordinary retailers and super, but what's the long term vision here? What are we actually trying to achieve? Where are you going to go? And then how are you going to get there? So for me, kind of getting a lot more comfortable in my skin about what we were doing. And that took a while. That took a while. And I remember I actually developed a strategy for the business. And it was probably only a bit six months later that I realized, "Oh, that's not right. That's actually not fitting with me. That's not where I want to take things." So really just developing your own idea of what you want to achieve with this. That was really important. Is it allowing yourself not to get too sort of woo-woo abated, but is it allowing yourself to sort of have the dream that you want and to really go for what you want? Is that kind of part of it? It is. And I suppose it's really a bit getting you to understand that the limitations of your business is just what's in your mind. I love the fact that I feel like we're building a business where anything is possible. And a long time ago, I used to look at businesses like maybe FritoLay in the USA or Inter-Snacky in Europe and think, "Oh my god, there's no way anyway. We'd ever be able to get that type of scale." But when I look at my business today, we're always building with that big vision in mind. And we're always developing skills and capabilities along our journey that would get us there. That's the focus. So with that, if we look at some of those larger competitors, is that what your vision broadly looks like? Could you describe it for me? Yeah, well, basically for the for the Keral product, we think that product can be the Guinness of Pedel crisps. When we look at some really iconic Irish food and drink brands, Jamson Hyskey, Guinness Stout, Kerrigold Butter, we want to do that with our product category. And we've made a great start. And the basically, if you look at all of those products, they're very much differentiated when it comes to what's available in the local markets. You taste Kerrigold Butter, that's Kerrigold Butter, you know, straight away. You drink a point of Guinness, you know that's a point of Guinness. Jamson Hyskey, you'll recognize Jamson Hyskey. Yeah, you taste a Kios Crisp, you'll recognize a Kios Crisp over anything that's in the market here in Ireland, but also overseas. Did you, when you initially did your first strategy, what was it, do you think that stopped you from getting to that point, what you just told me there? What stopped me? I mean, what was your initial strategy or your initial vision maybe for the business and why did it not fit with you, I suppose? I suppose it was probably lack of awareness. It was just lack of awareness of what is possible or what the possible is. And true, obviously growing and developing in the industry in the sector, looking at other Irish food businesses and what there's cheating overseas, that helps you to realize what a vision could possibly be. Yeah, like it was it, I'm part of, I suppose leadership for growth helped you to realize that was it, was it your peer group and seeing the way they thought about things, or can you remember if there was a kind of a light bulb moment? No, I think you've hit the nail in the head there. I think for me and everybody learns differently, but for me, it's spending time with those people and seeing how they had had such a clear and large vision for what they were trying to achieve. Whereas for me, coming from where I came from, which was working on a small family farm, I wasn't exposed to these types, this type of thinking. That wasn't. And true, the programs like this I definitely have been. And that has helped to expand the vision of the business and help bring it to where it is today. So once you unlock in your own mind that anything is possible, does reality sometimes block you? Do you feel like, well, how are we going to get there? And is that, does that plan, I'm assuming, it's once you put the plan in place, it doesn't always go exactly as you want to to and everything else. So how do you manage the kind of the in between bit if you like? Well, I can see in my own business is that once you develop the fly and the where, the hell becomes relatively easy. Yeah. And all you need are green shoes. So little examples of success. And I mentioned that retailer in America too, really, on an amazing green shoes. Happy days. Look at that. That is working. We need to just do more of that. Yeah. And definitely in my business, we that's that's how we've grown. You know, we've made loads of mistakes, but we've learned so much from them. Yeah. And focusing on what's working and looking around is it, okay, where it can be actually replicate that again and again and again. And when we go into another market, well, that worked in America. So over here, we're going to start with this guy because he looks very much like what they're doing over there. Yeah. And off we go. So little things, it's almost that you don't have to have a map down. It's when you see things working, does she kind of double down on those double down. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, being strategic in that as well. So looking at your markets and going after obviously where you feel the product will work and where commercially it'll work as well. We split that really in two areas. We have our strategic markets and we have our reactive markets. So strategic strategic markets are obviously there in the plan. This should work. It's a big opportunity. It's a big market and off we go. We develop a plan and we go after it. And then the reactive markets are it could be a simple as a supermarket buyer was on holidays in Ireland and they picked up a bag of Shamrock crisps. And we'll get a phone call. These are the nicest crisps I've ever tasted. Is there any chance you can supply to Australia and Africa goes from there? You know. So aligning then the rest of the organization, which is now a big business around this vision. Tell me a little bit about that and maybe some of the challenges you've had getting everyone else on board. Yeah. It's very challenging. And I think our business, it's it is difficult in our business. And what I found is one of the one of the most difficult things is that we have people at so many different levels working our business. So I'll have a senior leadership team on a Monday morning or end of the table, making decisions and driving a business forward. And then one day afternoon I could be on a factory floor speaking with one of the guys on the production line. So trying to get that vision across is difficult at all those different levels. And you need to tailor your message to suit. One thing that we found with their businesses is that culturally it starts as if quite a small family business. And you know, I identify that back around 2015, 2016 that there's a really special culture here. You know, it's we roll up our sleeves, we stuck in and we do a great job. And we needed to be able to communicate that to the team as it grew. So back then we had maybe 30 employees. Today we've 170. I've another 24 starting before January. So we really spend a lot of time getting that message across to every single team member when they start. And you know, live in the business values, et cetera. And really aligning communication with that and your team. That's how we do it. Do we get it right all the time? No, we don't. I don't think any business gets it right. But for us, the main challenge is to be able to communicate effectively to the different people at all those different levels. I've been in lots of business over the years and I've seen them do good work on this. But what I find is that generally speaking, they're kind of communicating to one kind of certain segment of the business. Their manufacturing might be, you know, outsourced or something like that. So don't have to worry about that end of things. So it can be challenging. Where do you spend most of your time in the business? At these days, you know, what's your kind of day today? Look like. If I had a choice, I think one of the things I think generally speaking, we are always drawn towards the area that we're most interested in. And being a manager, director, you need to be very cognizant of that. So for me, honestly, if I was to get up in the morning, I'd put a couple of spanners in my pocket and I'd be in the factory. I just love that. Machinery, that's my thing. Yeah. After that, I'd probably be in the marketing office, working on an innovation or new packaging or something like that. I just really, really enjoy those areas. But for me, I just, I find that I do need to remember that hold on. There's a lot of other areas in this business here that you need to spend time with. So generally speaking for me, like the week could start off Monday morning. We'd have all the senior team together and there's a round table. What's happened in the week? Previous? What's happened in the head? Key things. That's all the scost. And I do do want to ones with the team. You know, Monday afternoon. I do want to ones with the team. Fortunately, we'll focus on things and objectives, etc. Then after that, the week just, the readjust explodes. Every day is different. There's a lot of meetings in my business at the minute. A lot of meetings. We're doing a lot of work in Detroit. We're also trying to focus on developing that whole middle management area. As the business has grown, as the senior leadership team, now all of a sudden we're expanding to a point where we actually need a really key management level here. So that's what we're developing at the moment. Yeah. Can you be intentional about focusing on areas that might not be a particular strength? Our interest of yours. How do you bring that in? Is it simply by making sure that they're in the calendar and news? In the calendar. One of the strengths we have is that everything's on one site at the moment. We've just moved to a new warehouse location for logistics. But at the moment, before this move, everything is on one site. And to be able to walk around one site and see everything. Automatically, you're kind of looking after everything because you're meeting with everybody as you walk around. We would do that a couple of times a week. There'd be site walks and site walks with the team, etc. As there being a difficult, a most difficult area for you to develop personally within the business, clearly the operations, for example, isn't something that you needed to get to grips with. Obviously, marketing, you've kind of a natural flair for that. That's how the business and an interest in it. Has there been any area that you find it took a while to get up to speed on? Yes. Lots of areas. I remember in the early days, sales. I remember being afraid to pick up the phone to a supermarket. Yeah, one of them says to this person, "You know, I'm only going to do this." But I remember starting off, and I would be shaking picking up that phone to speak to say a super value or a donstorers or a Tesco. That was just, I suppose, you were just such a small business. I was so inexperienced. I did not have to deal with these people. Thankfully, over the years, I've developed the skills to do that. I'm very lucky, a fantastic team around me in the sale area that do a really great job dealing with these people day in day out. What's for me in the early days, I share that quite tough. I suppose with the awareness of the brand and the success of the product, the need for you to speak in public as well, obviously increased. I did find that quite difficult, difficult at the start. I have to say, even today, it is something that I need to do later in the week, public speaking, etc. I'll be dreadnought on the money bonus. Oh my god, I don't believe I have to do this. That still exists. I think that's quite natural. Lots of people are the same. I'd imagine so. Is it important for you to be involved with sales today and to be selling to new clients and that kind of thing? Yeah, I suppose it's a fantastic strength and it's also a weakness in that you're a family brand and it's a real story. You're behind the product and everything you say is true. Yeah, you walk the talk. But on the back of that, when there's a sales meeting or when there's a customer meeting, the customer's expect to see you. That's fine when you've 10, 15 customers, but when you've a hundred or more customers and are spread all over the world, that gets quite difficult. Even with the move to teams, etc. and Skype today, it still is difficult to find the time to do that. But I think the businesses get into a level that a lot of our customers are trying to realize that, that they might get to see my never single meeting. But yeah, I'll get to see Tom maybe once or twice or three times a year. Great. Yeah. And is that important for you to be with the customers and to hear their feedback? Oh yeah, I love it. I love it. Yeah. And I suppose it's one fantastic thing about this business is that we've done so many things for the first time that you're learning all the time and you're getting to see so much of the world. I've seen so much of the world's business. I've been in places I never wanted to dream to go of gone just to meet customers and sell products. It really is fantastic. I really do enjoy that end of it. There are some entrepreneurs and business people when I meet them. And it feels like they're doing what they're doing because there will be some kind of blue sky heaven, you know, on the other side of it. And it's kind of a very, very difficult thing that they're doing. And they're always kind of going and they're almost going in their nature. In a way, it doesn't seem that that's the same case talking to you. Would that be a fair? Yeah. You're very good to be open up because I think to add to the vision comment earlier on, I needed to kind of guess happy with the fact that this is a business that I'm not going to sell and right after the sunset someday. Yeah. This is a business that for me, success and what is it looked like? For me today, success looks like building this business to be the best it can be selling the best products in my category all over the world. And someday eventually maybe giving that to the next generation. That's success for me. And what does that mean? So when I meet other entrepreneurs, you're very correct on what you're true, what you said is that I can see that they are probably, you know, suffering in the enjoyment of their business to eventually have a payday and another life that they might enjoy. But for me and this business, it's, this is about enjoying every day. And that does that for me. I jump out of bed in the morning and run into work. You know, and I think the value in that is immense, you know, to really enjoy what you do. And, you know, I do think that over time, naturally enjoying and naturally being passionate about what you do inevitably breed success into that too. Well, a lot of the time it might not matter so much if the if the kind of monetary amount isn't as big as, you know, you maybe, I hope, 10 years previously, if you're kind of enjoying it every day. And the, you know, in some ways, it doesn't, it doesn't matter as much, is that fair? It doesn't. And I suppose having the pride, as well, like, you know, I spoke to a lot of people that have sold businesses over the years and they could pay it extremely well. But when they're at that level, you know, they have money already, you know, the money doesn't really matter. What matters to them? They're proud of what they've achieved. And that's the key takeaway. They're, they've spent 20 years, 30 years building this and they walk away proud of what they've done. And I get that from this business, you know, every day, I'm very proud of what, what, what I've done, I'm very proud of what the people around me do as well. You know, and I think that it's, it's, it's an immense sense of achievement when you have that. Yeah. Was money ever a factor? Did you ever, yeah. I don't, I think anybody who says that it's not that it's probably talking to the side of them out like money is key. And definitely for me in the early days of developing this business. Yeah, I want to develop a business. So we had, so we had, we're comfortable financially. Yeah. But I think the thing is that when you get to that level and I probably got to that level some years ago, where I had a business, we were turning over whatever million and my, I was comfortable and my family were comfortable. Great. Next step. Yeah. Tick that box, move on. Yeah. And so what are the challenges then after that? Is it easier now? So that you were talking about when super queen went into receivership and all that, all the difficulty he's and everything of having a, a kind of a fledgling business. If you like, you know, business that's kind of trying to get to the point where, where everyone's comfortable. Is it easier now or do you just have different problems now? There's different problems now. There are, there are 100% of different problems now. They're more challenging, but obviously, as I see today in the business is that the level of expertise and the skill of the people around me to handle those challenges are far beyond what they even wear last year. You know, great, really great team back in the farm. And we're looking in the fact that the popularity of the brand and the success of the business has attracted some really great people, you know, to work as part of our team. You know, and those people can overcome any challenge. But then reason, but I think we're still at the stage that we are doing a lot of things for the first time, a lot of things. And to be honest, it's something I really enjoy because that's the opportunity to learn, you know. And when we have what happened yesterday, we did, we did, we did, we did, we did, we did, truck stopped on the Swiss border yesterday. You know, why was the truck stopped on the Swiss border? Oh my god, Switzerland is not part of the EU. We need some documentation on this truck. Okay, less than learned. Okay, next, so let's put that process in place at the next time we make sure that that truck doesn't leave it at the documentation. So every day that there's a learning, every day, and we're, we're very lucky in that we're, we're dealing in so many different markets with so many different languages and so many different little things happening that it's, it's a great experience and it's great opportunity. So there's, there's not necessarily periods of, of huge, overwhelmed now, like there might have been in the, in the earlier days. There is. There is. Yesterday, an order landed in for a American retailer for St Patrick's Day next year. It's for St Patrick's Day next year. And it's the biggest order I had ever seen the business ever receive. Today, it's beyond our production capabilities. Yeah. And we three months to get ready first. Yeah. So, but I'm confident we have the teams in place. We have a track record. We know we've, we've taken a step like this before. Yeah. And I'm confident that we'll be able to do it again. So, talk to me just a little bit then about the future. So we know where you want to take the business. And in some ways, you know, your kind of like the brand is all over the place here in Ireland. Anyway, I don't know about you. You know, they're countries, but I know that you're exporting to those. What's the kind of the plan over the next few years and how you're kind of developing your ultimate goal? Yeah. Well, the key to us obviously will be delivering the production capabilities to deliver on that vision. And I'm getting to the point today whereby you know, I started, I rented a small potato store off my dad and I started cooking crisps in the corner of that store, you know, in an old Amish crisp fryer. And I'm still working in that area today. A lot bigger machinery, a lot more of them, but I'm still working in that space. And, you know, we've got to a point there now whereby, you know, it's starting to put a seal in on the limitations of production. So we've spent the last year designing a new production facility and that's to be built on the family farm, just literally 300 meters away from where the site is today. And it's an amazing opportunity in that a production facilities like these, they're not built very often. They literally built kind of once in generation. And I really enjoyed spending the last year. I've traveled all over the world and we met some amazing people with amazing factories, amazing new technologies. And we're at the moment, we aren't just pulling all of that together and figuring it out. And for us, it's an amazing opportunity to even improve the quality of a product further. Yeah. And deliver that production capacity that we're requiring the years to come. So we're pulling that all together at the moment. And we hope to break ground, spring, summer of next year, all going well. So it's really exciting, really exciting, great opportunity. And sustainability really is the focus. You know, that's probably a big difference between building a production facility today or even versus building a production facility even five years ago is the focus on sustainability today. Eco has been brought back into the economy. And everything we do, we need to do it with that sustainable hat on. Yeah. And it's a challenge. But, you know, we're developing some solutions that really care, we're really interesting and really enjoying it. Do you think that will be a benefit ultimately to, so obviously there's new regulations and everything to get to grips with and everything else, but do you think there'll be a benefit to the Co's brand and to the business in the future for having a sustainable mandate for want for better expression? Yes. Yes, there will. And I think Europe is well ahead of the curve in that regard. You know, when we speak to customers in the USA, for example, it's not really on the agenda there. You know, not really. You know, they talk about it, but is the consumer really looking for it? I don't think so. Here in Ireland, our customer base is very much ABC one. We over index in that area. And when we speak to our customers, the environment, sustainability, waste, pollution is all very much topical. And they expect brands like us to be looking after that for them. And I take that responsibility on my shoulders. And that's why we focus so much on this. The problem in the background is that the policing of sustainable claims and the legislation around what's happening with sustainability moving forward is way behind. Yeah. And there's been an incredible amount of greenwashing in the marketplace. And it exists today and it's getting worse. So I think there's things around advertising standards, etc. and sustainability that needs to catch up with where the market is and where it's happening. Just give an example of that because I'm not quite sure what you mean by that. So businesses can make a lot of claims about their products today in relation to sustainability. And in the background, there's nobody really checking it out. You know, and that's not right, but really is not right. And that has forced consumers to, I suppose, I think there's an element of mistrust there around sustainability claims. But I know there is legislation from the U-Cumber Forward that is going to help to manage that. But there's a lot of work that needs to be done around it. Yeah. So to giving the example in 2016, I think we were the very first food business in Ireland to become carbon neutral. And we did that through the work. Basically, we'd been working in Ethiopia for years with the local potato growers in southern Ethiopia, Gamma Gofa, and developing seed multiplication programs, better practice around crop husbandry, etc. And with the inevitable goal to have the local growers there and nearly every family is a grower self-sustaining in food production, made a huge difference. It was after these projects that actually the local aid agency got some of the activations we were doing around wood burning stoves and wells. They had them certified for carbon credits. So for every carbon saving in the reduction of wood burned by a family, due to the introduction of one of our wood stoves, we could claim a carbon offset on that. By putting in a well in a village, the water didn't need to be boiled, so we could claim a carbon credit on that. So, grace, really great offset the carbon. We were the first to do it. And what we found was that then it was nearly too early for the Irish consumer. They didn't really understand what we were doing. And we had carbon neutral on the front of our bags. And in the space of about four years, we went from no awareness in carbon neutrality to on this is complete green washing. And it was right. A lot of it is green washing. There are so many businesses that you can basically decide what you want to offset in your carbon. That's not right. A business shouldn't be able to make that decision. So that's probably a good example of what's happening when sustainability claims. And we still do that today, but we don't market it anymore. We don't market it anymore. It's right, it's happening, but it's not something that we talk about because there's been so much, I think, falls marketing around carbon. That it's a difficult one. Why did you do that work in Ethiopia in the first place? It's a fantastic opportunity for us to use what we do in a daily basis to the betterment of others. How often do you get that opportunity? There is a development agency in Ethiopia called Vita. They actually have an office in Dublin, a small office in Dublin. And I traveled over there with them for the first time. And I remember visiting the region and everybody thinks of Ethiopia. They think of barren, dry fields, southern Ethiopia in the highlands. It's beautiful. Beautiful climate, perfect for growing potatoes and lots of other crops. The soil is rich, but the knowledge is low. Believe it or not, potatoes were introduced to Ethiopia by Irish missionaries back in the 18th century. So when you look at a potato in Ethiopia today, as we know them, they call them the Irish potato. Yeah, if you ask for a potato, you'll be given a sweet potato or kind of a jam type product. But an Irish potato is a potato. And it's because they were introduced for the Irish missionaries. But unfortunately, they're still using the same seed from 150 years ago. It's incredible. So obviously there's massive issues there with disease. When I landed on the ground there first, I remember being brought to my first village and basically every house if they can, has a platter of potatoes growing at the back of their hut. And I remember that the standing in a field with the grower and the local, a grown-unist guy was trying to translate for me. And the grower was so proud of his crop and potatoes. They were going to feed his family in. He was going to store them, he was telling his plans. And I was looking at this crop and this crop was rocking with blight. The whole region was covered with potato blight. They had lost their crops. They didn't even realize it. Yeah, so the level of work to be done was huge. It's not just us. There's a lot of people in Ireland before us in the potato industry have worked closely with the region there to try to develop it. One of the key things was that new fresh varieties weren't allowed into the country. The government blocked it. And there's been a lot of lobbying door-novel research areas to allow that to loosen up, which has happened. So there's fresh seed getting into that country now. And there's small seed multiplication sites which we've funded in southern Ethiopia, where they're producing fresh seed now for the local communities. It's making a huge difference. Do you think this thing feeds back into you enjoying the business on a day to day basis and running it for the long term? Because I think when you kind of little, when I asked about why you would do it, why you would do this. You kind of little, but just helping other people for the sake of doing it. And I don't get the same response maybe from everyone. And not everyone cares about that. Do you think the two things are interlinked in your mind? Enjoyment. And I just, you know, the purpose of your business and running it for the long term and kind of enjoying it for the sake of what you're doing and being proud of what you're doing. Is it connected to this? Oh, it is. Yeah, it is. If you have an opportunity to do business to help other people in regions like Ethiopia that have their obvious issues by just doing what you do every day and helping educate them there, like what an opportunity. It's very similar to just maybe a doctor or a nurse going to work in that area. We're going in and, you know, we're just doing what we do every day, which is, which helping show them, show them how to do it better. Yeah. Tom Kyo, thank you very much for coming in and joining me. Normally at this point, I would say, where can people find a more virtue? But you're everywhere in Ireland and I never think of else, but you're in Ireland. I know you're in Super Value here in BlackRock. Is there any point in asking where else you are in the country? We have a very good distribution around Ireland. And that's thanks to the Irish consumer. Again, we're the only Irish owned, brand and manufacturer of potato crisps in the Republic of Ireland. So, yeah, we're fighting the good fight. We're available nationwide. Popcorn is now available as well and it's grown in distribution too. So, thank you to you, Connor and thanks to the Irish consumer for all their support. Tom, thank you very much for coming in. I really enjoyed the conversation and we wish you the best luck with Kyo's in the future. Thank you. This podcast is produced by Jeff Books, a charge of the counting firm dedicated to helping you achieve your business goals. If you want the support of an experienced finance manager to help you grow your business, let our team of Jeff Books step in so that you can step out of the day-to-day and shorten your journey to success. From automated bookkeeping to world-class business analytics and reliable financial support, Jeff Books has everything you need to grow a sustainable and more profitable business. So, if you're an SME owner, CFO, or managing director, head to Jeffbooks.io to see how we can help you achieve your business goals. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe only the five star review. It really helps others to find the show. I'm your host Connor Carney, thanks for listening. [BLANK_AUDIO]