Stop complaining, tycoon who turned potatoes into vodka profits tells farmers
WILLIAM Chase, the potato trader who founded Tyrrells crisps and Chase Distillery, has told struggling suppliers and farmers to stop complaining and warned they have no divine right to exist.
His comments follow a warning from farmers’ leaders that British cucumbers face extinction in the face of cheap imports and supermarket price wars.
Unlike many in farming, he praised supermarkets for ushering in improvements to agriculture and the food industry, but said that in doing so they gained too much power. ‘They did a fantastic job for farmers and food consumers in the 1980s and 1990s because they cleaned up the whole food market,’ he said.
‘Before it was a real pickle – farmers with straw coming out of their hair loading up spuds with rats running with them. Tesco and all the supermarkets did actually get it all cleaned up.’ But he said supermarkets began to drive down prices for suppliers unsustainably. He said of struggling suppliers and farmers: ‘If you’re making something that’s not wanted then it’s no good.
‘You have to have a market. You need a demand. If you haven’t got demand you’re wasting your time. And you need a margin. If you have got those two things I think you’ve got a business. But nobody gives you a divine right.’
Chase said he started making crisps because Tesco rejected too many of his potatoes. ‘If they were looking after me I wouldn’t have made crisps, I would have carried on growing spuds for Tesco,’ he said. He sold Tyrrells crisps for £40million in 2008 and now makes drinks including potato-based vodka and gin.