While the Asian shopper remains important to us, and our leading brand is the Natural Bio yogurt in the 1kg format, we’ve since seen a massive growth of white British people using our products for things like smoothies, condiment sauces and dips. Our Lancashire Farm brand continues to grow by 10–20% year-on-year, and I think there’s no reason why the company cannot grow by 40–50% over the next three to five years. The factory is running at 70% capacity, so we don’t have any problems on that front. Employment in the business is still really positive because we’re growing, but we’ve also stabilised our costs which means we can invest in higher skilled resource and make sure that our payroll costs are balanced. An intolerance to lactose may lead to digestive symptoms such as abdominal pain or diarrhoea after milk consumption. That said, much of the lactose contained in milk is broken down in the production of yoghurt so it may be that those with lactose intolerance may be able to stand it depending on the severity.

The business was started by my father, Ghulam, in 1984. Situated on Drake Street in Rochdale and then trading as Pakeeza Dairies, the company started off buying yogurt ready-made from a dairy in Peterborough. When the dairy went into liquidation, Pakeeza turned its hand to processing milk and manufacturing yogurt – albeit in a very small way.

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The consequence for us is that we are trying to sell products with added value in what is becoming a commoditised market, which makes life harder. It has also increased the number of yogurt products out there – in fact, I think there are more now than there ever has been. If you are lactose intolerant, it may be a case of trial and error to find out what works for you personally.

One way is to use some premade live yoghurt, which is known as a ‘starter’, other ways include using dry bacteria or probiotic powder. 3 Despite the increase in automation, we have had to nearly double our staff to 150 in just three years to keep up with the growing output. Those people have generally been more skilled, which has added value to the business. If you’re looking on the ingredients table, you should see “lactobacillus” or “Bifidobacterium” listed. Both ingredients would be considered “friendly” bacteria . 34 At the other end of the scale, health-conscious shoppers are looking for very low fat yogurts, a demand that we meet with Lancashire Farm Fat Free and the fruit flavours. I would say 40–50% of the volume we put through retailers comes from these two areas. Another challenge to the business was when the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) ruled in 2012 that the health claims of probiotics were unproven. A wide range of our products include cultures like Bifidobacterium BB12​ and Lactobacillus acidophilus​, which we had to reclassify as ‘bio-cultures’.

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This is why regularly including live yoghurt in your diet may be a great way of keeping your gut healthy. We also are starting to ramp up our marketing spend, which has been very limited in the past. Expect some experiential activity from us this year, and some bigger things in 2017. You need to have a strong competitive edge to stay in the supermarkets, and we believe we have it. And there is plenty of growth available for us. While we have a great nationwide reach, there is still the potential for more. Asda is a case in point – we are in about 200 of its 525 stores. Probiotics such Bifidobacteriaand Lactobacillus which are found in yoghurt have been shown to help the symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). 21,22