Farmers to Founders: Tyrrells crisps, Chase spirits, Willy's apple cider vinegar and BAZ & CO all in one family

0:04When you're in the space of it and you're working so hard, taking some chips off the table is fundamental. You know, how big will the brand grow without you? We are ingrained, I think, as a family to never settle and we all want to grow something. And I guess I'll always have the thing behind me and on my shoulder is creating a brand that is more successful than what we've done in the past.

0:29Welcome to Secret Leaders. Today, I'm joined by James Dashwood Chase, the founder and director of Bazandco. and Co. Growing up on a farm as part of the family behind Tyrell's Crisps, he lived the experience of building a brand from a young age. James went on to co-found Chase Distillery with his father William Chase, a company that produced award-winning gin and vodka before being sold to Diageo. He was then the driving force behind Willys, an organic apple cider vinegar brand now stocked everywhere from Waitrose to Ocado and, as a gut health obsessive myself, my own fridge of course. He was inspired to launch a super premium male skincare brand after reaching his 30s and realizing the need for better self-care after a decade of long hours in the drinks industry.

1:15Baz & Co was launched in late 2022 and it's already been recognized as one of the brands of tomorrow by Walpole, a luxury industry body in the UK. I've got my hands on the product, it smells great, looks amazing and so do I as a result of it. So James, welcome to Secret Leaders. Hi Dan, thank you so much for having me. It's funny listening to your story. Part of me is just thinking, right, okay, so this guy got me fat on crisps and then got me healthy from my gut inside out and now I'm shining thanks to his skin cream. Is there some sort of guilt about what you might have done to me originally and you're trying to rectify it a little bit?

1:49I think every founder has a stimulus to create things. And I guess my story and our story as a family is the brands that we've created and the journey that we've been on to get to where we are today. And we strongly believe health, wellness is post a COVID environment, should be number one priority in people's lives. And we're happy to hopefully deliver brands that let people really get behind that movement. So usually I do ask guests to start, tell me about your childhood. And I'd love to know about your childhood, but it's rare that childhood of the guest involves another brand people are so familiar with.

2:26And it's always so interesting to speak to people and learn what made you interested in becoming an entrepreneur. And with yours, I think it'll be maybe slightly more obvious, but I'd love to know a little bit about what it was like growing up for you. Set the scene. Yeah, so I grew up on a very small farm called Tyrrell's Court in North Herefordshire. Herefordshire has a population of about 60 ,000. So it's really not on the way to anywhere unless you're going to Anglesey. But it's home to some amazing characters, gardeners. But the main reason it has a great population is because it always has been a farming county.

3:02The soil is rich and fertile, and you'll see that in the intense red land. So I guess if you're travelling, if your audience has ever been to Hereford, chances are you're stuck behind a tractor going through its narrow winding lanes. But our family really gets its pedigree from growing potatoes. And it really is potatoes that grow especially well in its rich red soil as well as crops like cider fruit. So farming was in my blood from an early day. um my father necessarily didn't take on it on a huge farm and and it was it was a it was a struggle growing up we we we worked very hard my parents worked very hard to begin with on the farm and and really trying to establish what crop would um would benefit our family the most uh and it was trading potatoes that really kind of gave us a lifeblood and my father you know worked exceptionally hard growing up um uh i think there's a lot of stories and the consensus from the public that you know that farming is quite an easy thing that you inherit this this big land mass and and you know you switch on a button and it produces food but um I think many farmers out there will tell you something very different and for us it was it was incredibly hard work and I really have my parents to thank for that and part of that hard work has hopefully rubbed off into me and and my values in life I think we were really hard up against it growing growing up and it got to the early noughties.

4:24And I think we really found as a family, we needed to diversify and we needed to create margin in what we were doing. We were ultimately trading something with a very low margin. And at that time, the rise of these big supermarkets were very much commanding the price point that farmers were getting. So we needed to create potentially a brand. And cut the long story short, my father was inspired after a trip about the potato chip, which is called in America, the gourmet potato chip. And realizing that a batch of his potatoes were perfectly good, were being fed into kind of a leading posh crisp maker at the time, kettle chips.

5:01He realized, well, if I could grow very good potatoes, there could be a competitor in this space. We're a nation where it rains so much in this country. We love growing potatoes, but we love eating crisps. And obviously, Walker's, you know, was a big brand at that time. So the premiumisation move happened for us when we created the brand Tyrell's Crisps, originally Tyrell's Chips, because we were really trying to go after the gourmet market. And yeah, focusing on independent customers that were willing to tell the story. And my father's kind of great line was, it wasn't unusual for a potato to be picked in the morning and to be turned into a crisp by that afternoon.

5:38and farmers were pretty unheard of in the FMCG space. And my father reported to be travelling down the M4 in his tractor to deliver Chris to London sandwich shops was really inspiring news and press really got behind the brand and what we now know has become a household success. But it really was Herefordshire that intrigued people's curiosity and the brand still thrives on the farm that we own in North Herefordshire and it's exported all around the world, which is fantastic to see. It's amazing. It's such a great story. And actually, I want to say one thing. When you said that about farmers, a couple of years ago, I would totally relate.

6:22But it is incredibly fascinating how much positive movement Clarkson's Farm must have done for the plight of farmers. Yeah. I say this to my wife all the time. I would say that's the most entertaining show either of us have seen in the last couple of years, mostly because we don't like Jeremy Clarkson, which is the perfect ingredient, because everything that goes wrong to a typical farmer happens to him and you don't feel bad for him, but you understand that he's representing one of many farmers. And so you actually feel vicariously terrible for them. And it looks like an insanely hard job with little reward, so much unpredictability.

7:00And I feel like they managed with that show to really get the agenda on the map for the first time for general people like me and my wife who wouldn't otherwise care because we're so far away from it. We live in London. And really what that show taught me was we can have lobbying and conversations like this and all of the things about all the important things that happen in the world. But if you really want to get a message out to people, entertain them. Yeah, I think probably what farmers lack is maybe sometimes the ability to communicate well. They're very good at rearing sheep, you know, staying up for long nights and irrigating their potatoes.

7:38But communicating to people, as we all know, is a skill. And Clarkson has an amazing ability to communicate, you know, in reality. He does a good job of showing how the other farmers don't communicate so well in that show as well. Yeah, exactly. And he's all about shining a light on real characters. Look, he, you know, he's sitting on a thousand acres in the Cotswolds. He probably doesn't need to do much on that farm for the asset class to increase in price. But he has done a fantastic job to bring the narrative back to the customer because the politicians won't. You know, there's such a small voting population within farmers.

8:14So why should why would they care? But but, you know, if you look at the stats, you know, we we import about 50 percent of all of the food that we eat in this country. And we need more people to be paying more respect to farmers to to pay a better price. Frankly, I think food is too cheap in supermarkets. It's ridiculous that you can buy, you know, chickens for as cheap as they are or milk is actually cheaper than, you know, than a pint of mineral water. But through entertainment, hopefully people are maybe reassessing what they spend things on. So, you know, rather than, you know, maybe go on that trip, they're actually prioritising their health and wellness now through eating more nutritiously.

8:53And without getting into a big, long story about the failure of the NHS, you know, we need to get be more into preventative health care. And that starts with, you know, rich and balanced diet. And that comes from understanding the farmer that's, you know, that's made your produce. Absolutely agree. And on the same mission with my company. So I totally agree with you. I want to just understand so obviously you grew up in a normal story of a farm and a farmer's family etc etc and then at some point in your life how old were you when the brand becomes a global sensation and it's such a household name and I'd also love to get a sense of how big has that brand become like what are the do you release any figures is there any information just in terms of the storytelling so we get a sense of how big it is?

9:43Well, we exited the brand fully and it's been on a journey now owned by a hopefully what I call a forever home where it's alongside notable other snacking brands. It's a German company called KP Snacks and it's seen a meteoric rise trade in most supermarkets. I don't have complete up-to-date numbers, but it very much is a global brand and and very much challenges now kettle chips uh in the supermarkets in terms of what what premium the brand still thrives on the farm that we own so it's done a fantastic job to get there and i think yeah to answer your question about seeing it i you know it didn't feel so long ago to me that i was cycling down our village lanes in herefordshire with see-through crisp packets to give to locals when we just started the the run and we stayed up all night frying potatoes and i've got a bit of a scar on my shoulder where i burnt myself on the on the chip that so that that journey yeah doesn't seem too long ago um i guess you know we'd probably still we love to be involved with the brand but that's that's how it goes sometimes you you realize an exit and you have to you know look forward and move on but um it was a it was a great space great margin great category to be in um but i guess that you know the challenge is now around the you know change in society's need for more healthy and more nutritiously dense snacks.

11:03But for me, it's still a fantastic crisp to have at a dinner party. How life changing was it having an exit for your dad and your family? And also, how did other farmers relate to you before and after? I think when you're in the space of it, and you're working so hard, taking some chips off the table is fundamental because you realise that and you ultimately try and guess how big will the brand grow without you. There were certainly independent customers once you sell out that probably won't go on to back you. And if the next acquirer then is focused on multiple retailers looking for discounts and promotions, I guess that's where the challenge goes because if you supported those independent farm shops from day one and then you're suddenly, you know trying to go for global domination it is a hard challenge so in terms of those customers yeah I guess they do treat you differently but but hopefully we we brought them other brands that they can make margin and profit on notably the the distillery and other brands that we'll talk about later my brother still has a contract with Tyrells to grow the potatoes for so I put my hands up I'm a I'm a light touch farmer I grow a few things in my garden but my brother took on the mantle of um of going into farming and he still holds contracts with Tyrells and Chase distillery um which is which is great to see because i can't tell you down how many board meetings i sat in uh where where was it vital that the potato grew from that field to to make the story and um i think that was always you know really really important as you scale you know how important are those kind of single ingredients and the location of where you grow them from but um yeah of course there is but but i also caveat any of the negativity with inspiration and it's amazing to see how many great food and drink brands are coming out of herefordshire now I think there's a couple of crisp brands.

12:50I think there's 20 odd gin and vodka companies. And they're all starting to diversify because they've got the confidence and they've seen other people do these brands and risk something. So, yeah, I take it more as inspiration that I've given to these farmers an opportunity to put themselves out there and to storytell what they're good at, which I think is a fantastic thing to see. I guess a similar question is, you know, presumably whether or not, you know, willing to talk about it or not. When your dad exits, he goes from being a poor farmer to a rich person one way or another. And that is like according to general population discourse.

13:28You know, you and I would broadly see that. You don't even need to know the numbers. You see, farmer has exit of brand with high margin. You only have to fill in the dots. So I'm curious how other people related to him, his friends, you know, other poor farmers, you know, people that are lifelong friends. Did it create an unusual experience for your dad who just had never had that experience? And did people treat him differently? And did people treat your family differently? Now you weren't holding the old narrative, right? You're now like innovative, wealthy people. Might sound like a strange question, but I'm always fascinated to explore that on this podcast because the answer is always so insightful.

14:08Yeah, like the nouveau riche of coming from a small farm, you know, to go big. But if ever people have had the luck to meet Will, my dad, you all know that we're just rolling on into the next thing. And I think that kind of qualms any points around that. And by going straight into building a distillery at the height of an economic crisis, wasn't probably the Spartus move. And when copper prices were at their all time heights, we piled in building a craft distillery fully out of the metal. So I think we weren't escaping. We weren't social media wasn't too much around them, but we weren't gloating.

14:47We were rolling straight into the next thing. And that thing was obsessive. And that was trying to bring a new generation into, you know, craft spirits and field to bottle distilling. So we've always done that. We've rolled into the next brand. And we, you know, should we have stayed in that first brand to begin with? I guess that maybe is a sign of our character and this kind of never settling attitude. But I guess, yeah, we want to keep growing and advancing and moving into the next thing. And that's really where, you know, Chase Distillery comes in from that journey of going out to America and seeing the rise of, you know, craft gins and vodkas.

15:26and this need to bring the people of the UK spirits with pedigree. So talk to us a little bit about that journey then. So you potato legends, turn those potatoes into chips, take your chips off the table and stick them into a copper distillery. What is the timeline around these things? And how are you as a guy growing up in this family? like you and your brother actually you know how are you positioned around it what are you learning what's your experience what's your involvement what's your roles so we we grew up we grew up in a very hard-working environment and and that can't be stressed enough I think you know putting putting the hours in and and going from there and my dad was you know dad was in this family role you know so I got so much admiration for family companies because they're the backbone of of society and And, you know, I put my hands up, you know, family businesses are challenging environments to be around.

16:27You know, you've got to split priorities. And, you know, lucky for us, we've gone into categories like distilling, for instance, where, you know, if you look back at most notable vineyards and distilleries, there are so many different roles, you know, that come out of them from, you know, accounting, marketing, sales, operations, production, farming. So it allowed us to kind of split our kind of what we what we do best in to form into the different roles. But, yeah, it was it was it was a tough environment because we grew up and there was a need to work hard to pay the bills. And I guess the, you know, the challenge I've always had is is is not wanting to go straight into farming and letting my brother have that course.

17:15But I was very fortunate that other opportunities came up in our family business, such as marketing and sales to, you know, to drive awareness and to going back to what we talked about with Clarkson is, you know, trying to find that ability to communicate what the, you know, what the farm does. But I was lucky that I'm very different to my brother and we have very different skill sets. But it allowed us to follow truly what we were passionate about. And I've always got my family to thank for for letting us, you know, letting us fulfill that destiny and especially the the not the stupidity, but that led us to come into the to the family business as well.

17:51And I think that's helped underscore our, you know, our story, because there's always that saying, you know, one generation makes it, second one maintains it, and the third generation spends it. I was just going to say, destroys it, isn't it, usually? I think they use the Rothschild story pretty much to define that one. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, to go back to your point, yeah, there's always been challenges, but I think we're very apt to, you know, sticking to our areas. and yeah we're very grateful for that. Amazing okay so at what point in the distillery business are you getting your hands really dirty and starting to think about exit and starting to think about your own next thing and starting your own thing like I guess the question is you've done it once then you guys as a family are doing it twice I know that you had an exit to Diageo but Were you always planning to sell or did that opportunity actually surprise you?

18:50So I think, Dan, once you've gone through one exit, Tyrells, I think you kind of, you put your marker in the sand. And however much we like to think that, you know, potentially you can do it again, I think you'll cast that spell. But yeah, Chase was, you know, it was a tough battle. So we came through 2008 economic crisis. We've been to America. Barack Obama had pulled down the jurisdiction on distillings. There was a new wave of craft distillers out there championing great tasting spirits and flavour. And you saw that boom of craft breweries and distilleries that have kind of mushroomed in America and then flown here across the pond.

19:30I think there was probably, you know, when you start a company that's well funded out of the back of Tyrells, I think it was a bit of a niche hobby at the start, using up potatoes that were too small to make the crisps with. And that's how Chase was born on a new farm, but ultimately just a very small side project. And as we realised the full exit of Tyrells around 2010, that we started to then really hone in on Chase distillery. I guess then the need to start trading and to work up. And for us, we were all about growing those potatoes, sourcing potatoes that were too small or wonky to be turned into Chase Vodka.

20:10And Chase Vodka was born in 2008, went on to win the world's best tasting vodka in 2010. And as we grew the brand, loads of other competitors started to come in. And Gordon Brown then pulled down his jurisdictions for still sizes, I think, in 2009, 2010. so Chase was set up on a bigger scale with a lot of investment from the start where we were fermenting distilling and hand bottling all on one farm which which you know was a several you know was was a multi-million pound investment from day one off the proceeds of Tyrells and then from that from that really step change Gordon Brown pulled that legislation down and it then rose for this mushroom of of gin distilleries to open up here in the UK and I've always said and you've probably seen this down in your work ships rise with the tide and no man is an island and especially when you're building a category the craft spirit boom particularly in gin wasn't built just by by chase starting early and and that was a key point of our success was starting early but all of these other brands coming into the space and once you had the likes of sip smith gin mare monkey 47 brands that we really looked up to and as a as a side note um you know you You should keep one eye on your competitors, but keep focused on your business.

21:26But it was really those competitors that started kind of bringing the challenge to the table. And as we'd focused on vodka for probably a bit too long, gin was really the volume driver that got us going and a seat at the table with those later discussions. Because we were one of actually very few distilleries that made gin from scratch. It was using that potato vodka and turning it into gin. And I guess kind of gin blew up because a lot of guys were sourcing neutral grain spirit and putting it through a little distillery, which they could then ramp up their volume, which was great to see. But obviously we were part of that journey on a kind of a whole, you know, top to bottom approach, vertical integration.

22:06And then I guess, you know, everybody, probably a lot of your listeners, Dan, have had that occasion where they've been queuing up in some pub on a Friday night, 30 people deep. And there's always that one person at the front of the bar deliberating which gin and which tonic they should have. And we kind of guessed peak gin saturation came in about 2018, 2019, when there was just so many brands on the market. And Fevertree were kind of leading the premiumization of the tonic market. We thought, you know, this is a really hard category to truly disrupt because the competition is just so fierce.

22:39And we're not a champagne or a tequila where we're governed by an area. albeit that we're feel to bottle distillers we always used to get lumped into you know to the gin market and it got harder and harder to to really tell our narrative and I guess we were at a crossroads down whether we either keep it as a long family business and something that my kids maybe could have gone into and my brothers to take on for generations or we felt now was that right time once we'd kind of passed the the magical 60 ,000 nine litre cases kind of target that we could look for an acquirer. And we decided as a board in 2019 to start looking for partners.

23:19And it was at that time that I was in America trying to find scale in our distribution that I kind of got a chance to kind of meet other big scale distillers down there to see what would be the chances for a partnership or 100 % acquirer. Because when you look at that journey, if you turn the other direction, you've either got private equity or you're finding a forever home for the brand. And if you look at forever homes of brands within the spirit sector, there's really just a handful. You know, your Diageo's Bacardi Brown Foreman, Pernod Ricard's, you know, it's a very small field. So there's definitely certain opportunities.

23:59And kind of finishing out the point, once we'd agreed as a board, we went into negotiation and got interest from Diageo in early 2020, which was amazing to see because they were, you know, an English London listed based global distributor and owner of brands, including Guinness and Smirnoff. And we thought this would be an amazing opportunity for the brand to reach its next level. And any details on the exit available online or announced now? So we completed the deal in March 2021. Getting to 60 ,000 90 cases was a benchmark for us. And as we've seen with other Spirit transactions, it's a great market to be in because the sales multiple was great and we were very happy with what we achieved.

24:53um i guess like with um with tyrells we still own the farm and and we hope now that diageo will will continue to invest in the brand and the story that made it um that made it so great again but um yeah looking back on it it was it was such an amazing period because the deal came online for exclusivity in 2020 but then covid happened and i moved back to live with my mum close to the distillery and um a couple of months later the deal fell off the table and we had started to hand bottle hand sanitizer and we because we were one of the only distillers in the uk that was making things from scratch um we were we were able to make a lot of hand sanitizer that we uh that we gave away in the in the in that you know several hundred thousand units that we produced and and scaled up that brand so it was just the most amazing time in in my life um of kind of total change and landscape.

25:54But we were then very happy that at the end of that year, Diageo came back on board on full deal terms and we were able to complete in early 2021. So kind of a roller coaster of emotions. But I'm so happy that they came back now to support really their only English distillery, which is great to see. And obviously Diageo also bought Ryan Reynolds' aviation gym brand for about$600 million, right? So are you close to that? Do you have the star power of Ryan Reynolds going on there? Yeah, I don't know whether that deal is closely materialized just yet and what their volumes have been hit in the future.

26:35But we certainly were very happy with what we achieved. I think there's always a time when you want more. But if you've got ideas and things that you want to do in the future, you need to get on with doing that. And we were really happy that we had a brand partner like Diageo who were not just looking to 3X the company and to buy their next Ferrari. They were looking to support that brand over many years to come. And, you know, that was a real close consideration for us, considering that, you know, just like the George Foreman grill, our name was above the door and it was on every bottle. And Dad's signature was on the bottle.

27:11So we wanted to make sure that the brand home was in keeping with that. We're quite unusual. We're not a George Clooney, Ryan Reynolds back brand. And those brands are fantastic in their place. We are a family brand with great values and great sustainability credentials in terms of, you know, renewable energy and our filter bottle farming ethos. So, yeah, I think it will be an interesting move for Diageo and how they look to scale a kind of slightly different brand than is used to their celebrity model. So after the exit, who's like, how do you do the transition? Like, did you have an earn out?

27:46Did you have to stay on with Diageo? So did you buy yourself anything, anything particularly interesting to give yourself a pat on the back that this part of the journey is over and there's something new? Yeah. So, yes, it happens at the most strange, strange moment because you're coming out of COVID and you're so many emotions going on and there's a lot of video calls. So it's an amazing thing to do. And the kind of senior management in the team did an exceptional job through that through that process. and I guess when you when you realize the the next chapter I stayed on for a period as with a few other members of the team to see that integration within Diageo and I think it was I think few founders probably will tell you that they stay on with their acquirer and things turn out really well but but most know that I think once you've got another partner in the business and you've agreed those terms they've got their strategy and I think you can be an advisor for so long but they need to take that vision and and run from it and I think it's um there's there's definitely a lesson there and and I see it very rarely that that founders stay in the businesses and you know really work well with with their acquirer obviously depends who it is and what the deal terms are but um yeah we we we had a yeah 100 % and and um we still own the farm so my brother is involved in running that and sorting that relationship with Diageo in terms of how they operate what they're investing in there and the potato supply but but for me uh no I think we just like dad we invested straight into the next brand and we invested in more equipment at Willys in terms of fermenting space and brewers and um and then I I was really tempted to go into the to the cosmetic market but um yeah I I guess my time with Diageo was very interesting and you know that during that duration of those months I learned a lot within their business and have a lot more respect of how bigger businesses are run and how things are communicated and um it was definitely an eye opening from moving at speed to to going into you know to a diageo of the world and understanding how they do things and the time it takes to to formulate plans and but once once the wheels are in motion it's um you know it's huge and we yeah we tend not to look back so much but you're yeah you're just reminding me about this process and uh and and yeah that's that's it really so yeah We're on to the next thing.

30:05And I guess that money's gone into our next brands and building those brands up to see what they can do in the future. No lavish purchases. I mean, I'm really struggling to imagine you didn't buy that Lamborghini tractor that Jeremy Clarkson has. It doesn't fucking work, but not anywhere near as well as all the cheap ones. But it just feels like the right thing. I have an old 930 Porsche 911 and I worked with a company called Tuttill on renovating that a bit more. and I was actually luckily enough able to buy a Porsche tractor, which during the war, Porsche fitted into making four tractors. It's not as fancy as Jeremy's, but yeah, Porsche used to make some great tractors and I've got one in the shed, which I love, but I'm useless at mechanics and my brother has to come over and help me start it.

30:54Right, okay, yeah, fair enough. This is just about the look anyway, just knowing that you have it in there. I don't have to even necessarily, just for the photos, didn't even have to work on it didn't even have to turn it on for the photos James what was it like mentally to be exited out of the family business and you know you're just reflecting on giving it over to Diageo did you struggle with that like letting go yeah I think I think it was really hard because yeah there's that cheesy saying you don't realize that you know until you're winning you don't realize until you're in the winner's enclosure that the thrill was in the chase and that's obviously very fitting for my name but yeah all the fun work of building something and doing something and you know the passion of doing it and then stopping and realizing your time has come to an end and and there was obviously you know a period of I couldn't go straight back into the to the booze industry so yeah it really hit me hit me quite hard and I was lucky that I had a amazing girlfriend now wife around me at the time that you know that was very very supportive and And, you know, whilst there's this massive upside that you've realised your dream, there's also the realisation that, you know, I'm probably a little bit dyslexic, didn't go to university.

32:05And I'm really keen to release my own brand. And whilst I'm really still involved in my father's work and what we do, I was very conscious that I wanted to do something on my own. But I'd obviously had a huge amount of support at Chase and we were a big team and we had, you know, a great story to live off. and the realisation that, you know, you've got to start again. And then it really hit me very hard. And, yeah, that was probably quite a shock. And I think, you know, you've gone through that journey yourself and not realising it, but there's only so much that you can bluff. And then the hard work of actually coming in to trying to be an authority in that space takes a bloody lot of time and to get noticed again because suddenly you're emailing people and they might not get back to you or they might not take you seriously.