20-40 FT Feb17

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Dairy Special MUM’S DREAM COMES TRUE FOR CUSTARD SQUARE COMPANY 20 FEBRUARY 2017 stayed constant throughout our journey: we’re still family-owned and we take great pride in that. The company is committed to continue operating in Timaru where the company’s roots are strong as ever, and we still share and promote the family values that my mum passed to us when she entrusted us with Denheath. “Denheath is based totally on honesty, integrity, respect, trust, a sense of belonging and direction. I was brought up in family businesses and Donald has had immense experience in managing and driving a team in a way that all of the team feel inspired to do their utmost to make Denheath successful.” Templeton says her mother’s last wish was to take the product national and international. On buying Denheath House cafe, Carol also purchased the old recipes that made it unique, and was convinced it was worth buying for the custard square recipe alone. “As a family, we ran the café for many years. People started coming from far and wide to sample our fluffy, high-rise melt-inyour mouth, rich and creamy custard-filled squares,” Templeton says, “and pretty soon we realised Mum had been right.” Donald is the “brains” in the business, with his wife having a real passion for food, baking and cake decorating. "My mother had a dream that Denheath and her custard squares could become nationally and even internationally known, and we wanted to make that happen for her. If we were corporate enough to ever write a mission statement, achieving her dream would be it.", Templeton says. “After looking at various different ways of raising funds to grow Denheath, we talked to PledgeMe about doing something a little different. After 17 years of work, we felt crowd-lending really suited our company’s family values. “It gave us the choice to grow with the help of like-minded Kiwis who love our product, want to be a part of our success and want to also see regional growth in New Zealand. And it goes way beyond the money – our crowd will become our ambassadors as well as our investors.” The minimum investment is $500 and lenders will receive 8% interest per year over a five-year period. The money raised by crowd-funding means many of the problems associated with rapid growth will be solved. The company intends immediately moving on with a factory upgrade, new key personnel, and a skilled and sensible advisory board with international export skill. “With the lessons we have learnt, we believe that we can make Denheath an internationally known Kiwi brand,” Templeton says.  “The plan is to do this step-by-step over the next five years.” A South Canterbury custard square brand which launched its crowdlending campaign on PledgeMe in October last year has successfully raised more than $350,000 to accelerate its selfproclaimed ‘World Custard Invasion’ within New Zealand and overseas. Denheath Desserts, which produces 10,000 custard squares per day from its Timaru plant, will add Hong Kong, Singapore and New York City into its distribution network off the back of the highly successful crowd-lending campaign. Directors Lisa and Donald Templeton already sell into Australia, Japan and South Korea – thanks in part to guidance from NZTE over the past three years – and are keen to expand into South East Asia, China and the United States. However the pair needed funds to successfully plan for their 17-year-old business, and still saw further opportunities within New Zealand to sell products. “We’ve done a lot since our small beginnings in Pleasant Point,” Lisa Templeton, whose mother Carol owned the company before passing it on when she died in 1990, says. “But a couple of things have


FT-feb2017 digi-1
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