Breakfast is a full time job for couple beside lough

Breakfast is a full time job for couple beside lough

2 March 2016

SURROUNDED by trays of baked granola and a permanent smell of cinnamon in the air, Jill and David Crawford take a few happy small steps to work everyday.

Surrounding their idyllic 200 year-old Portaferry farmhouse are three converted sheds that have transformed a granola business conceived in their kitchen into a company supplying the likes of Tesco and Waitrose and markets in Hong Kong.

With cottage industries booming in the UK, the number of people working from home has doubled in the past 10 years and Jill and David will be seen by many as living the dream.

Granola has become a breakfast must-have for many households, but back in 2011 the couple were mostly busy with what they term their “real jobs”.

David was working on the Clandeboye estate developing their yoghurt brand while Jill was a Community Director at Business in the Community. But from 7am on Saturday mornings the pair would sell yoghurt on a small market stall.

“We started baking granola in our kitchen at home to go with the yogurt,” said Jill. “That’s how it all started.

“We were trying different cereals in the market that really weren’t very good. We just got a pile of ingredients in one Sunday morning and started.

“Our first break came when Howard Hastings, the owner of the Hastings group of hotels, visited the market, and tried some of our granola. He liked it so much that he invited us to meet his head chef for breakfast.”

By the time breakfast was over they were the sole supplier of granola to the Hastings hotel chain.

“We couldn’t believe it,” said Jill. “We were already baking every night and all weekend long, so our kitchen oven just wasn’t going to work any more. So we turned our shed into a small bakery.

“I always get a bit worried when people talk about us making granola in the shed in case they actually think it’s a garden shed, but we have a farmhouse with barns and out-buildings that we’ve converted.”

Just a few months later, the pair started to pick up their first retail customers and David had to leave his job to be able to keep up with all of the granola baking. In 2014 Jill joined him and the ‘Just Live a Little’ company was on the road.

“The name reflected what we were trying to do — live a little,” said Jill, who is originally from Belfast.

“We were coming down to this area for weekends and had just been looking for a second home. “Then we saw this place and it was a case of heart over head.”

From selling their granola in sandwich bags at a market stall, they have moved beyond a cottage industry to supplying stores such as Ocado, Tesco, Waitrose and Spar, and they recently won contracts to supply companies in Hong Kong and Germany.

However, with the help of a couple of employees it’s all still baked on the farm, with two granola products recently expanding into 13.

The new export business is a “tremendous boost” for the couple, but they are keeping it simple by continuing to concentrate on “real food”.

“If you look at the back of most granola packs and the list of ingredients I like to think it’s what we leave out that makes us different,” said Jill.

Although delighted with their rapid expansion — Tesco approached them at a food conference for instance — the couple admit that it can be “difficult and stressful” even when you’re working on the shores of Strangford Lough.

“The idea was to work hard and play hard,” said Jill, who is also a busy mum to Ollie (7) and Mya (5).  “There have been a few sleepless nights and it can be busy but I like the variety of getting to meet lots of different people every day.

“There is no such thing as routine and I am getting to travel to lots of exciting places to meet buyers.

“I also love holidays and planning holidays, that’s how I switch off.”

For David, whose grandfather owned the Crawford’s grocer shops in Belfast, it is an industry that it is clearly in the blood. He remains hands on at the farm, where their wet mix of granola is baked in an oven before being cooled and shaken by hand in the piles of red containers lining one of their barns.

In December alone they produced eight tonnes of granola.

“There is always new product development, for instance we are introducing a new gluten-free brand,” said David. “Product development is non-stop. We like to be really busy, We thrive on busyness. We worry when we’re not busy. When you don’t have another income it has to work.

“We try to keep the weekends free as far as possible, though there can be tastings on Saturday at Northern Ireland food and drink events. This is a great location here in the summer. Near Kearney village is Knockinelder beach, which the kids love going to, and we love being outside in the garden.”

Despite a general decline in manufacturing here, with the help of food conferences, trade fairs and Invest NI, the couple believe there remains a big market for locally produced food.

“The speciality food market here is really something that can continue to be developed,” said Jill.

“We knew we had a good product that we liked anyway but we never expected so many other people to like it too.”