Building a global business from a South Mayo farm

Aisling Flanagan is a powerhouse. Pure and simple. Aisling and her husband Michael run the very successful Velvet Cloud brand – a selection of products made from sheep’s milk. They are based on a farm outside Claremorris, while Aisling also runs her own training and marketing consultancy and lectures in marketing at University College Dublin (UCD).

It’s actually hard to see where she gets time to fit it all in but she is very honest about those challenges too. A love of agriculture from an early age led the Dún Laoghaire native to where she is now but she gained extensive experience along the road.

We sat down in Claremorris to chat about her journey.

Angelina: Aisling, thanks for talking to me. Tell me a little bit about your background.

Aisling: I grew up in Dublin, in Dún Laoghaire. My mother was from a farm in Mitchelstown in County Cork, and my father was from Waterford, but he grew up from a young age in Dún Laoghaire. 

I went to college in UCD to study Agricultural Science. In my final year, I met Michael, who is now my husband of nearly 30 years. 

Having finished in UCD, I went straight to Italy to live and to work. I was working for what was called the Irish Meat Board at the time, and it then turned into the Food Board. I was very fortunate because the manager who was there in Italy left during my first few months working there and I was given the responsibility at a young age to manage an office and look after the Italian and Greek markets and help Irish food companies to export.

Angelina: Where did life take you after Italy?

Aisling: I like to say Michael followed me out to Italy but he went to do a masters in Italy anyway! Then we went to France. So I went to Paris and he went to the south of France and I was still working for the Food Board. But while I was there, I was offered a job with Heinz. Heinz is a global food group and I was working on the Linda McCartney and Weight Watchers brands in the food category sector. 

And then from there, the journey took us back to Ireland because we started a young family and there were signs of more on the way. And we just said, right, are we going to stay in Paris now and put down roots and we'd have to move out to the suburbs and change our life very much or we'll move back to Ireland? 

When we came back, we lived in Dublin for a few years. I got a job with the Ogilvy group as part of the WPP group in brand strategy and left that two years later and set up my own business. I set up a training and marketing consultancy. At the same time, I got offered a part-time job in lecturing in UCD in marketing. So I took that because I thought that could give me credibility when I'm trying to get clients. I got a few good blue chip clients in that area earlier on, and I'm still running that business now. And I'm able to do it because the infrastructure is so good between Mayo and Dublin. 

I go to Dublin every week to lecture during the academic term. And it suits me perfectly because I can work on the train. 

We're living in Mayo 20 years now. Michael grew up in Brickens, between Ballyhaunis and Claremorris. He would have had experience with dairy cows and sheep and all of that. When we were building our house, Michael inherited a small farm from his dad. There was sheep on it and no infrastructure. So we're looking out at these sheep thinking, we're not making much money, are we going to keep them? And because of our interest in food, we started to do a bit of research and we noticed there was an increasing interest in the microbiome, increasing trends in the interest with chefs buying local producers and supporting local producers. And then there was a whole health trend, developing high protein products, all of this kind of stuff. So we started to experiment with sheep's milk products. We gave prototypes out to chefs and they all said, 'oh, my God, these are delicious products'. It was nothing to do with our amazing skill of making sheep's yoghurt. Sheep's milk is a really, really rich, natural, creamy-tasting product. And that's where the business came from - positive feedback from chefs and then some local shops.

Angelina: The product has grown so much since then but I am sure there have been tough times too.

Aisling: I think lots of people see us out there and they think, 'oh, you're doing great'. I think the reality is a much tougher, much harder story. We're in business nine years now. Our hero product and our main product is Velvet Cloud Live Yoghurt. That is selling in supermarkets, it's selling online and it's selling into the high-end restaurant sector. 

Velvet Cloud Yoghurt is the most expensive yoghurt in the world. And we don't say that with pride, it's just a fact. But it's a bit like oysters and fish fingers. People have begun to recognise that if you want quality and something that really will help your gut, you have to pay for it. We're not making a huge profit out of it, it's just that the cost of producing a litre of sheep's milk is infinitely more than the cost of producing a litre of cow's milk. An average Friesian cow will give you 18 litres of milk, whereas a sheep will give you two. So it's a completely different scale business. It's much more premium, it's much more niche, of course.

Angelina: What type of development have you overseen during those nine years?

Aisling: We would have enjoyed double-digit growth every year. If you're in food in Ireland, if you're starting off as a food producer, you can't look at Ireland as giving you a sustainable business. There are only five and a half million people on the island. That's not going to sustain a small Irish food business if you have ambitions to grow it. We always knew this, and that's our aim, to grow our export markets. So we're already exporting to the UK into food service. So that's the restaurant sector and also a small bit to Asia. 

This year, in February, we went to a trade fair in France. It's called Salon du Fromage - it’s an international trade fair for cheese and yoghurt producers - and we've made some really good contacts there. Our ambition is all of these things is to sell to the States and/or southern Europe by the end of 2025 and to grow our UK business.

Angelina: You have two very busy businesses running all the time Aisling - is it full on?

Aisling: I probably don't have the best work-life balance. I'm very fortunate now that my children are all older - I have four children - my baby's 18, so he's doing his Leaving Certificate next year. I have two off the payroll, one in college and one going into Leaving Cert. And they're a great help, we call them, you'll see on our social media, our junior shepherds, and they've been a fabulous help. 

I think if it's your own business and you're doing it for yourself, I think just naturally, you put in more energy and you're more motivated and everything you do and every bit that you push yourself is for you and your business and your family and your future. So I think that's probably why I do it. I suppose the nature of the consultancy and the training work I do is either a lot via Zoom, on-site with the client, or I'm going up and down on the train. So I'll get an awful lot of work done in my commuting time. I just try to be really, really efficient. Everything on social media that we do for the brand Velvet Cloud or work I do for clients - report writing or proposals - it'll all be done, to be honest with you, on Irish Rail.

Angelina: What continues to drive you Aisling?

Aisling: I suppose it's just stubbornness and resilience because we've come this far. In the middle of Covid, when we lost half our business overnight because we sell to the restaurant section and they closed, we really thought we were going to go out of business. The online shop - our velvetcloud.ie - saved us and so we got over that and thought 'Gosh, you know, we'll never have a crisis like that again'. 

And then the war in Ukraine started and I think that was even worse. The increase in costs and the increase in electricity and packaging and pricing and interruptions to the supply chain was nearly more difficult than Covid. 

So we've been through two huge crises and disruptions in business and we're still here hanging in and I think that's what drives you because I'd be just so cross if we have to stop now. It's more just a sense of we've come this far, I really want to make it a success and it would really annoy me and upset me if I had to give it up.

Angelina: What advice would you give to people reading this, thinking about taking the leap of faith into business?

Aisling: Network. I teach marketing and I teach sales, and I help larger companies build their sales. What really matters is from day one, from the day you start in college or leave college or whatever work you do, is to network. Build a diverse network of people, because you never know who's connected to who. When you go into a networking event or when you meet somebody, always be thinking, 'How can I help that person?' Not what's in it for me. And if you approach life like that, you will be able to tap into a wealth of support and help.