Robert Ditty

Robert Ditty

Foresight and innovation are helping to guarantee the future of a thriving home bakery in the heart of mid-Ulster. Russell Campbell has been talking to Robert Ditty…

“We’re very fortunate, we’re in an industry that makes a product that people really want. They have lots of choice out there, but if you can offer them something that they can’t get anywhere else, then you will get the business, people will come to your shop…”

That’s how artisan baker Robert Ditty explains his own approach to the business that has earned his family a healthy living for the last three generations.

In a general sense, Robert is best known perhaps, for his award-winning oatcakes – savoury traditional biscuits that are increasingly popular in diverse international markets from Australia to the United States.

In a bakery sector where competition and unrelenting recession have driven volume and cost to the fore – often at the expense of quality – the old core markets in bread and traditional Irish products offer increasingly poor returns for small artisan bakeries such as Ditty’s.

However, like many business owners who have found themselves in similar positions, Robert has adapted to survive, pinpointing the potential of his higher end products – in particular the biscuits – to secure new and lucrative revenue streams in markets around the world.

These are exciting times for the mid-Ulster business, but Robert himself remains grounded, most at home overseeing operations at the bakery on Castledawson’s Main Street where his working day begins at 3am.

He has two retail outlets: one here in the same village that his grandfather first opened a bakery 50 years ago this year and another in the nearby town of Magherafelt. Both stores have coffee shops attached but the only baking operation is at Castledawson where around 40 staff are kept busy.

“We do a very wide range here although the product mix has changed over the years,” Robert tells NI Baker. “Fortunately, we saw that change coming and we’ve adapted the business to accommodate it. Take traditional soda bread, for example. Fifteen years ago, it would have been 30 per cent of our production, now that’s fallen to 20 per cent and one of the reasons for that is that you can buy two farls for as little as 68p these days.”

Robert links that shrinkage in traditional markets directly to the pervasive influence of the multiples’ focus on value and says that as a result, he’s been compelled to develop new, niche lines such as the biscuits and his long-life bakery range.

He doesn’t supply any of his products to the multiple chains, but he admits that it’s not an easy path to tread:

“It is a challenging situation, there’s no doubt about that and we do find it difficult to make a margin in the Northern Ireland marketplace without the volume,” he says. “But I won’t be bowing down to the demands of the big retailers and accepting things like ‘sale or return’, that only works in the retailers’ favour.”

Robert acknowledges, however, that consumers have shifted their commercial allegiance in recent years. The arrival of the GB multiples in the mid-90s, he says, sparked a new and radical focus on value and convenience. As a result consumers have developed a new parochialism, preferring to travel as little as possible for their shopping and for retailers, the emphasis is firmly on volume.

“It isn’t about the food itself any more”, laments Robert, “it’s about who can sell more of it and it’s about competition, which isn’t really good for the consumer, it may drive down the prices but it also drives down quality as retailers try to match the prices that are current.”

It’s also harder these days to impress the consumer, he remarks. Twenty years ago, new products would almost certainly be successful if they were in any way different, but not so today in a local market swamped by choice.

It’s that ‘me too’ variety of food retailing that Robert seeks to avoid. He rails briefly against Magherafelt District Council’s recent decision to support one of three applications for an out-of-town food retailing operation, wondering if there is any other business in Northern Ireland other than selling food: “People can only eat so much food,” he remarks.

Robert has also been proactive in the defence of his family’s trade, however. Launched 15 years ago, his burgeoning savoury biscuit business now represents around 30 per cent of his trade. Based on the original oatcake recipe, he now supplies a growing range of varieties including lemon, blueberry, celery and pepper and date and walnut.

Much of his wholesale trade on the savoury biscuit side is handled by franchisees. His biggest single customer is Waitrose in the UK, and in the south of Ireland, Sheridan’s Cheesemongers distribute the product to their own customers and to a growing list of international outlets. In London, the oatcakes are popular at Fortnum and Masons, Harrod’s and with wine merchants, Jeroboam’s. And they recently went on sale in Australia at David Jones, a high-end department store chain. Consumers in the United States can buy the biscuits from gourmet food supplier, Dean and DeLuca and they are included in luxury hampers supplied by Chelsea Market Baskets in New York.

For now, Robert doesn’t expect the basic divisions of his business to change – the coffee shops, the generic home bakery ranges and the expanding trade in savoury biscuits are all essential elements of his success, and if one aspect begins to slow, he can safeguard his revenue streams by temporarily shifting focus.

“That said, the future of the business is more export orientated,” he concedes. “With the retail end, all we will do is improve the services and the products that we offer, we’re not looking to expand seriously there. As for the wholesale business, that ebbs and flows; for the last six months we had hardly a call from anyone, then in the last three weeks we’ve had about three.

“I’m also hoping for a favourable response to our work in Australia, we’re working with agents in Italy and we have two more in the US. These are huge markets for us and I think we’re only touching the top of it, we’re just seeing a very small part of it.”

Robert appears relaxed and happy to chat about any aspect of his business. His love of the work is clear and he is an almost permanent fixture among the ovens at the Castledawson bakery. He gives no indication that he’s approaching retirement but when he does go, his nephew, Clifford Brimley, who has been working with the business for more than 20 years, will take over the helm.

Until then, Robert remains at the head of a family bakery business that is redefining its own corner of this shifting sector. He demonstrates that with foresight, innovation and graft, size is no barrier to commercial success, even in today’s fickle and ruthlessly competitive markets.