IN this week’s SME Focus a former bank worker explains how he helped his family’s food business forge a new identity making well known products such as porridge oat bars.

Name:

Dario Riccomini.

Age:

35.

What is your business called?

Aldomak.

Where is it based?

Giffnock, on the south side of Glasgow.

What does it produce, what services does it offer?

Primarily, we're a contract food manufacturer. We make traditional Scottish confectionary and oat-based products such as flapjacks or porridge oat bars.

To whom does it sell?

We manufacture for Stewart's, the Perth-based fudge tin specialist; we make oat bars which are sold in all the multiples; we make fudge, tablet and macaroons for Highland Croft; and we produce own-brand products for Aldi, including Mrs MacGregor and Specially Selected.

What is its turnover?

£1.2m in the year to April, with £1.9m forecast for next year.

How many employees?

20, including two important recent managerial appointments. It's quite labour intensive. Everything is made by hand. We started off with pots - now it is open pan boilers, poured on to traditional cast iron cooling tables and broken up manually before being wrapped.

When was it formed?

The company has been in existence since 1932. My family bought into it in the seventies, primarily servicing the Italian ice-cream trade, making and wholesaling nougats, oysters, wafers and cones. But that market declined, as the second generation decided it didn't want to stand behind a shop counter for 15 hours a day. Ice cream vans are few and far between as well.

Why did you take the plunge?

I was working with Intelligent Finance, in an operations/HR role, but a promotion did not materialise because they would have had to move me up two pay grades so I decided that I would be master of my own destiny and joined the family firm in 2001. When I joined, it had been in a wind-down period for a number of years since my sister and I had indicated that we were not keen to take it on. But then I started to wind it back up again. At that time, it was very lean - just the family and three other employees.

It became clear that we did not have the resources to position ourselves as a brand at that time, so I made the decision to look for contract manufacture for other companies. That has been our road for the last decade, but now we are embarking on a major re-branding exercise which will launch this year.

What were you doing before you took the plunge?

As well as my roles with Intelligent Finance I flirted with other ideas. I was involved with sales with BT in the glory days of big earning. I also took an HND in dental technology with a view to starting a dental manufacturing practice. But the first time I had to repair a very old set of dentures, which belonged to a smoker and a coffee drinker, quickly disabused me of that notion.

How did you raise the start-up funding?

I contributed by dropping my remuneration by two-thirds and saving as much money as possible. Often, we wouldn't pay ourselves. My parents re-mortgaged part of their property to bolster the finances.

What was your biggest break?

Our first major contract needed a big investment of money we didn't have in a crucial boiling machine. I needed to persuade my parents that using overdraft and asset finance, not financial products that they had ever employed, to acquire the equipment would double our production and set us on the right road. It was, as they say, a full and frank discussion but we agreed, ultimately, on the way forward.

That investment set the pattern for the next stage in the redevelopment of the business, with me living, more or less, in the factory for three months to achieve the result, all the while looking at how we could improve efficiency and make sure the product was absolutely right. We knew what we were doing, but did not fully appreciate, perhaps, the scale of what we were attempting.

What was your worst moment?

Someone, at some business school somewhere in the world, must have conducted an in-depth study on how family businesses handle the process of passing operational control from one generation to the next; unfortunately, or maybe not, I haven’t read it.

Everyone has their own management style: my father took the view that it was vital to work in the business – to be on the production floor before everyone else and leave after them. I felt it was better to work on the business - getting new contracts, considering efficiencies and so on.

I won’t pretend it was a smooth process. We had our disagreements but eventually we came to an understanding that I was the one who would take responsibility for ringing the changes and having the business take on the market.

Now my parents are happy with what I've done with the company and have said to me that they understand what I was doing.

What do you most enjoy about running the business?

Being in control and being able to make decisions to suit my morals is very important. For me it's not about profit, it's about social responsibility. My people are paid well, they're not overworked and I'm looking all the time to make their lives easier. I also take pride in purchasing ethically sourced British raw materials.

What are your ambitions for the business?

In the longer term, I would like the company to be off-grid. I'd like to generate our own gas by anaerobic digestion of waste, and produce our own electricity with turbines and solar - a true zero-carbon company which is not a burden on the land. In the shorter term, we're buying green electricity from the Grid.

What are your top priorities?

Systemise the routine and humanise the exceptions. Too often, business owners get caught in the trap of doing everything. It also very important to achieve British Retail Consortium accreditation, which we are working on at the moment and hope to win shortly.

What could the Westminster and/or Scottish governments do that would help?

I would be very keen to see more common sense around legislation. A lot is European regulation, which we are bound by, but it can be a little bit frustrating. Regulators have to be satisfied - they are stakeholders in my business plan - and the public have to be protected. But, for instance, having to send monthly manufacturing reports on volumes and materials to the Scottish Government is a bit onerous - with threats of fines if we don't comply.

What was the most valuable lesson that you learned?

Hard work pays off. I have also learned to trust my own instincts and my own judgement. When I haven't done that, I've regretted it.

How do you relax?

I don't. My wife and I have a 19-month-old daughter who has made a massive change in our life. She is great fun and at a really nice age. Everything is just a wonder to her. I exercise at high intensity and I read voraciously.