BY ALLISON LEE
Roger Payne and his wife Lesley bought a traditional hill sheep and cattle farm in the Snowdonia National Park (Eryri) many years ago however, with just 60 acres they knew it wasn’t large enough to make a living from and therefore they had to think of alternatives to make money.
Diversification came in a variety of ways such as converting barns into self catering units and, armed with their experience of being outdoors instructors they ventured into a small, but successful adventure activity company.
With retirement age looming, Roger decided to hand over the mountaineering side of things to younger people living locally and, once again, he found himself turning his thoughts to other ways of diversifying.
Roger tells me that in 2009 the wool crisis was extremely bad, worse even than it is today where the value of wool is at rock bottom. Back in 2009, Roger says “you couldn’t give the stuff away.” However, as the farm’s 10-year management grant was coming to an end he desperately needed to think of ways to replace the farm income.
It was on 4th May, 2009, a date that Roger says he will forever remember, when he and his wife set out in the car to visit a friend in Harlech. During that short four mile journey, which probably took less than fifteen minutes, Roger had his lightening moment. Whilst discussing their next phase in life, it became apparent to Roger, as a sheep farmer, that he needed to think of something to do with wool. When his wife asked him what, he suddenly had what he describes as his ‘Damascus Moment’ when he blurted out that he wanted to reinvent the wool blanket. Dubious, his wife pressed him further and when she asked what kind of wool blanket he replied “Let’s stuff wool into a duvet”. Lesley’s response to Roger’s suggestion was simply “You can’t, and anyway it sounds too itchy, heavy and old fashioned, you need to call it something else.” Jokingly she said, “It’s not a duvet let’s call it a Baa…..vet.” And the name stuck!
Everyone they spoke to about their idea had never heard of a wool duvet so, thinking he had invented the wheel, Roger’s enthusiasm hit new heights. Until, his son, who was heavily into computers at the time, quickly found out that they made wool duvets in New Zealand. Roger was a little downhearted when he learned that his idea wasn’t original but, armed with the knowledge that no-one in the UK made wool duvets and, confident that at least the technology to make them existed, he wasn’t deterred.
Then came the hard bit. Finding someone to make the duvets proved much trickier than the couple initially thought. They contacted the British Wool Marketing Board who, whilst unable to help them find someone to manufacture the duvets, did provide them with some useful contacts. One such contact was the Wool Testing Authority who were invaluable in helping Roger and Lesley track down the best British wools to use as it had become apparent that not all wool is up to the job.
Eventually, after many months, they found a factory in Huddersfield, who still had one of the few remaining wool carding lines left in the UK that could card wool the width required for making duvets. Huddersfield was once a major textile town and was a prime hub for producing fine wool and cloth. Although the owner was himself well past the age of retirement it appears he liked a challenge however, he didn’t have any knowledge of quilting. The next couple of years were a series of trial and error. Roger and Lesley bought a second hand multi-needle quilting machine and installed it in the factory in Huddersfield, thus creating probably the only wool quilting line in the UK at that time. As the factory was struggling with the technical side of the initial stages of the duvet making process, Roger and his wife decided to set up a small factory unit in Snowdonia, where they lived, to convert the rolls of quilt made in Huddersfield into individual duvets. However, as Lesley’s only experience of sewing was on a small home sewing machine, this too proved to be a series of trial and error. Over time, through hard work and determination, Lesley became very competent operating industrial sewing machines and was also a dab hand at mastering many of the technical problems that occurred when things broke down!
With the help of the couple’s son, they launched their wool products on the internet and, says Roger, they have been amazed at the public’s response.
Roger and Lesley moved the entire manufacturing process to North Wales when they received a grant from the Welsh Assembly finally achieving their initial goal of making everything as local as possible. Roger tells me that the whole process has been a huge learning curve for the entire team and they are still tweaking things to this day, to enable them to ensure the smooth running of the machinery. Having learned so much about the technical qualities of wool since embarking on this enormously successful venture, Roger says that wool is “far superior to polyester, feather or down duvets or, for that matter, silk ones.”
In February 2014, Roger took Baavet to Dragons’ Den, a British TV programme where aspiring entrepreneurs have the opportunity to pitch their business idea to multimillionaire investors. Roger was seeking £130,000 investment for a 10% stake in his business and, whilst he received two offers, one from Peter Jones and the other from Duncan Bannatyne, Roger declined both. The ‘dragons’ each wanted a much higher stake, at 50%, than Roger was prepared to give away and, sticking to his guns, he walked away without a deal.
I asked him if he regretted the decision and he told me that, after appearing on Dragons’ Den, sales in the Baavet skyrocketed. Ten minutes after the program had aired, Roger told me their website had crashed trying to cope with the demand for their products and his wife had to go into the office to reboot the computer!
Whilst speaking to Roger, it is very apparent that he is proud of what he has achieved and, quite rightly too. He has turned an almost worthless commodity into a successful business and, some would say, re-invented the duvet along the way. Still relatively small, the company employs just ten people however, with regular orders and an envious list of stockers, things don’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon!
For more information about the products on offer please visit https://www.baavet.co.uk/
Allison Lee is a smallholder from North Yorkshire who has written for the Yorkshire Times and other publications. Her website can be accessed here.