Page 24 - Chase Case Study Final

The Future: "You have to tell people your story if you want to
build your brand. But there has to be real DNA
behind it if you want to be successful."

William Chase

Chase grows King Edward & Lady Claire potatoes for his distillery as
well as organically grown cider apples for making cider, apple vodka and
gin on his combined 1,500 acres of two Herefordshire farms. He grows

all the fruit for the liqueurs and the apples are grown in his 200-year old
orchards.

He also grazes his organic pedigree Hereford Chase Herd under the
apple trees.

Chase grows juicing apples, cox, bramley etc. for making his Chase the
Farmer apple juice, as well as wheat and barley to feed his cows on in

the winter.

Ultimately, apples might even replace potatoes altogether at Chase
Distillery. The business logic is that apples do not require replanting
every year. But there is also a personal angle. "I should say that I love
potatoes, but I don't," Chase admits. "In fact I could quite easily say I

hate them: potatoes have upset me, made me cry, and given me a bad
back."

"the business has to keep growing and I'm not a mass-market person",
(See Appendix 3) said the man who refused to sell his crisps in Tesco so
the brand premium would not be undermined by discounting.

Chase is now exploring the possibility of manufacturing potato-based
biobutanol believing that the waste left over from his distillery could be

used to make a high grade vehicle fuel suitable for replacing
conventional unleaded petrol.

“We have known for a long time that potato starch is an excellent source

of bio ethanol but this new scheme will tap the resources left behind in
distillery waste,” said Chase. “There has been research completed at

Edinburgh Napier University that has demonstrated that ‘pot ale’ (the