It seems straightforward: A great business starts with a great business idea.
Tony and Olga Dutra certainly had one, and the company they started in a garage in Grand Valley, Ontario is now North America’s largest goat cheese maker.
But oddly enough, their success stemmed directly from their ability to doubt their great idea.
“I don’t box myself in,” says Tony Dutra, CEO of Woolwich Dairy, headquartered in Orangeville, an hour’s drive northwest of Toronto. “When I sample a competitor’s product, I keep an open mind. I don’t judge something instantly, form an opinion blindly and say, ‘This cheese isn’t as good as ours.’”
At first blush, this sounds a bit weird. Aren’t you supposed be enthusiastic and totally committed to your great idea?
Well yes, you are actually. And the Dutras were. Tony was just 20 years old on that day in 1986 when he arrived home from his factory job to find Olga and his mother Adozinda waiting for him on the front step with huge smiles on their faces.
“My first thought was, ‘Oh my God, I’m in some kind of trouble here,’” he recalls. “Then they said, ‘We’ve got this great idea—we’re going to make goat cheese.’”
In fact, Adozinda already was. She’d mastered the art while growing up in Portugal and kept making it in Canada for herself, friends and family. Moreover, all three believed the goat cheese then available in ethnic food stores was second-rate.
“In most places, they sold it in these little sandwich baggies with the cheese flopping around inside,” says Tony. “It was messy and unappealing. Sometimes the cheese would be good but the next time it would be awful.”
Then the Dutras had a second great idea—instead of rushing into production, 7they’d tried to prove that their first idea wasn’t so great after all. They spent the next four months going to hundreds of stores in southern Ontario to buy and taste goat cheese.
“Part of me wanted to believe my competitors’ product was horrible,” says Dutra. “The only way that I could think of to get rid of that bias was to eat my competitors’ product day in and day out. I tried to think like a consumer, not a competitor.”
Objectivity is often the first casualty of entrepreneurship. You’re so enthralled with your product—be it great cheese, your fantastic naturally raised whatever, or the marvelous gizmo you invented in your shop—that you’re blind to your competitors’ merits.
The four-month test phase (which really has never ended) paid off big time. They came up with the idea of a re-sealable tub to eliminate the ick factor. Having seen how inconsistent competing cheeses were, they became fanatical about consistency. And having spoken to hundreds of food managers, the couple—Olga is company president today—compiled a lengthy list of do’s and don’ts for deliveries, invoices, case sizes and all those things which consumers never think of but are crucial to store managers.
Those factors saw the company, initially named Nova Cheese, grow rapidly right from the start. It bought long-established Woolwich only three years later and from that point, sales really took off.
The biggest challenge wasn’t sales but production. Most goat milk producers were seasonal breeders who dried their goats off every winter. Monthly milk deliveries would soar in spring and drop 70% by fall. Since Woolwich’s strongest sales are in fall and winter, inventory carrying costs mushroomed as the company grew. Moreover, much of the milk coming in the spring was poor quality, and low in fat and protein.
Something had to be done, but goat milk producers weren’t keen to work harder and spend more on feed, better facilities, and quality breeding stock in a business that wasn’t making them a lot of money.
So the Dutras took the mantra of ‘think like a consumer’ and changed it to ‘think like a farmer.’ They met all 70 of their producers in small groups and talked. And talked. And talked. Slowly a solution emerged—a plan that would see producers earn about 15% more if they upped fat and protein levels, and delivered year-round. It meant higher up-front costs for producers but also the chance to significantly boost profits.
Once again, the ability to put themselves in the other person’s shoes paid big dividends. With supply issues solved, Woolwich could continue to grow. It now has about two-thirds of the Canadian market, one-quarter of the U.S., and last year alone increased sales by about one million pounds.
Today, Tony can think back to those big smiles on the face of his wife and mother and know they were right—it was a great idea. But his advice is simple: Let your brilliant idea dazzle others, not yourself.
(Glenn Cheater is editor of the Canadian Farm Manager, the newsletter of the Canadian Farm Business Management Council. The newsletter as well as archived columns from this series can be found in the News Desk section at www.farmcentre.com)
