Not much more than 25 years ago, Clive Ramsay was trundling around country roads in a battered old van buying potatoes from the farm door and selling them on to shops and chippies. He was making 50p a sack, and thought he was doing rather well.

Now, in what must seem like a different universe to him, he is putting the finishing touches to the latest transformational deals in the mini-empire which bears his name over much of central Scotland. These deals will push his group's turnover towards £5m - which is a lot of potatoes.

The journey in between, if scripted, would be a classic business school exercise in how to build a brand, create fierce customer loyalty and expand at a steady but sustainable pace - while still retaining a small and local feel for the disparate parts of the business.

The Clive Ramsay chain's roots have always been in the Victorian spa town of Bridge of Allan in Stirlingshire. It is one of these places which naturally attracts the adjective "douce". People still shop with wicker baskets, green wellingtons pass unremarked and the dry cleaner does horse blankets.

His food emporium and delicatessen there, with hams and sausages hanging from the ceiling and pungent cheeses scenting the air, has become something of a tourist attraction in its own right. In recent years, he has opened bright new restaurants at Stirling University sports centre, the hub of Scotland's national sports coaching programme, and at Brucefields, a family golf centre near Bannockburn.

Ramsay has also just taken on the food retailing effort at the Falkirk Wheel, one of the country's top tourist attractions which now invites 500,000 customers a year through its gates.

A major refit here will allow him to seasonally showcase the best of Scottish food through regular promotions and farmers' market-style events.

By the end of May, he will have taken over a prime city centre store in Stirling and, in a £300,000 refit, turned it into a civilised lounge and restaurant for people who don't need music at Heathrow runway decibel levels.

And in February 2009, when a new £27m sports and leisure complex opens at the massive Forthbank regeneration scheme in Stirling city centre, Ramsay will be in charge of the showpiece cafe on one floor and a full formal restaurant on the upper floor.

Each of these ventures will add £1m to this year's projected turnover of £2.75m and will increase the number of employees from 45 to more than 110, making the Ramsay empire one of the biggest private sector employers in the region - discounting, of course, giants such as the Prudential. All the current expansion has been funded by re-invested profits.

Ramsay, who appears outwardly sanguine about the rapid expansion, was born in the Hillfoots town of Menstrie, into an environment where the height of ambition for school leavers was to "get a trade".

He joined the Coal Board as an apprentice electrician and whiled away three years in which he "learned absolutely nothing".

Keen to find a more stimulating direction in his life, he decamped to France - ostensibly to work, but in fact to have his eyes opened to a diverse and joyous food culture with which Menstrie struggled to compete. "It was unbelievable," he said in between supervising the stocking of his Falkirk Wheel store. "It was like a different world."

However, he returned to a Scotland in which - in the eyes of many - Mrs Thatcher was conducting a scorched earth campaign against Scottish industry. He took the first job he could find - delivering potatoes round small independent stores.

"You couldn't do that now," he said. "There just aren't enough small shops left."

Ramsay, realising that the barriers to entry in his chosen trade were remarkably low, soon bought his own van and branched out into business for himself. He said: "I was going to the fruit market all the time and my customers started asking me for items other than potatoes and it wasn't long before it grew into a full-scale wholesale fruit and veg operation."

Dealing with the market traders afforded him some early lessons in the cut and thrust of commerce. He said: "For nearly two years I was buying 40lb boxes of bananas and assuming the weight was correct because it said 40lb on the box. It turned out it was never more than 28lb. And in the early days, I had the greatest difficulty asking people for the money they owed me. I was scared I would lose their business."

The turning point came when he was offered the keystone Bridge of Allan store by a customer who had been running it as a wholefood enterprise. And, ironically, it was his well-heeled and gastronomically adventurous customers who helped complete his culinary education.

"They would come in and say: Clive can you get us some Kalamata olives'. I would think to myself: What's an olive?' But they taught me about artichoke hearts, ricotta stuffed pimento and all the rest of it. It became self-propagating and I became almost obsessive about quality food from good suppliers. I suppose I still am," he said.

Once the thirst for the good things in the culinary world was awakened in the former potato merchant, it became unquenchable. He looked with admiration at other deli businesses such as Dean & DeLuca in New York, Fortnum & Mason in London and, closer to home, Tony Johnston's burgeoning Peckhams chain.

He also noted how these businesses were successfully cross-fertilising into the restaurant sector and, in 1984, he bought the furniture shop next door and turned it into the first Clive Ramsay restaurant outlet. It was not an immediate success.

"The first night was horrific," he said. "I didn't think we needed a manager, so the staff were all doing their own thing. It was hours before anything reached the tables. And I was working on budgets which bore no relation to reality. We were so naive."

But the recipe of "good food cooked simply" caught on and quirky, innovative menus struck a chord in a town which was ready and eager to move away from standard pub grub.

"Meeting at Clive's" became a social fixture.

Ramsay opened, built up and sold on six other shops and catering businesses in the local area while maintaining the Bridge of Allan operation as the core holding. When he sold the restaurant on a 25-year lease recently, the goodwill consideration was some 7000 times more than he paid for the first store back in 1984.

He still fetches up at the Bridge of Allan store at 3.30am to lay out the attractive front-of-store displays and does a decent shift until about noon.

Then he embarks on his round of the other enterprises, to sort problems, realign stock and keep the offerings fresh and attractive to his customers.

He is quite phlegmatic about the impact of a new M&S Foodstore in nearby Dunblane.

"I've seen Tesco, Sainsbury and Morrison open up here and they were all supposed to finish me," said Ramsay. "They didn't. Nor will M&S. I have great admiration for what they do - they are one of the best providers of fresh food in the country.

"What they will do is continue to raise awareness of the quality of food and increase the number of people who are prepared to pay a premium price for it. That is to be welcomed."

And he has no substantial concerns about the rate of expansion, despite being aware that over-ambitious strategies have brought many other enterprises to their knees.

He said: "I have no problems about taking on new business so long as I can put the right people in place to run them. If I can't, I won't. It's as simple as that."

Driven to succeed

What was your best moment in business:

After 10 years of renting, finally purchasing the business premises in Bridge of Allan.

And the worst moment:

A fire in 1992 closed me down for nine months. Thankfully, I had good insurance.

What business book are you reading at the moment:

I only read business autobiographies, most recently Duncan Bannatyne's and Gordon Ramsay's - both very hard working and driven.

What are you driving:

A VW Golf.

What drives you:

Satisfying my customers and working with fantastic, dedicated staff.

What are your immediate ambitions:

To achieve the work/time-out balance, which I don't have at the moment.