Thatchers Cider in Sandford makes appearance on family business podcast

Sandford's family-run cider maker, Thatchers, is the next guest on chart-topping It Runs In The Family podcast, with the firm's father and daughter stressing how family values have played a huge role in developing a small apple orchard into a successful 117-year-old cider company that now sees the brand in shops, pubs, bars and restaurants in more than 20 countries.

Martin Thatcher, Managing Director and fourth generation cider maker, and his daughter Eleanor, fifth generation cider maker, join mother and daughter podcast hosts, Liz and Leila Willingham, on It Runs In The Family.

The episode reveals the family's love, care and attention towards the business and its craft and how this has helped to develop their now 500-plus acre operations at Myrtle Farm.

Listeners can hear Martin and Eleanor talk about the complexities of growing a team with the same strong values as the family members themselves, the sense of pride in the previous generations and the risks they took to grow an iconic cider brand.

This episode covers:

• How a generations-old business generates new ideas
• Focusing on organic development, and treasuring their talented team members
• Measuring your success by the generation that follows you
• The particularly careful task of recruiting for a family business with strong values
• Keeping work and family life/disputes separate

Episode highlights:

• "We've changed the whole way we're growing apples, very much down to my father and his foresight of how we should be growing apples for the future, and the whole industry has moved in that direction." - 5:25 - Martin Thatcher

• "As my father retreated back into the farming, I moved on to look after all of the business. I can see the same happening with Eleanor, where she's now looking after the fermentation. She can look after a bit more and a bit more until eventually, I'm just the backup team!" - 17:25 - Martin Thatcher

• "I think you both understand what it's like to be a family member working in the business, and how everyone else sees you in that respect. So, I think that there's been a few moments where we get what each other is feeling with respect to certain things." - 26:30 - Eleanor Thatcher

• "I think recruitment and people are just so important in any business, but particularly in a family business. You have a set of values, things that make the business successful, which aren't necessarily what happens generically through bigger corporate businesses." - 40:00 - Martin Thatcher

• "As a family we've taken risks others wouldn't, which have helped us get to where we are - I still have that sense of pride in the brand." - 41:10 - Eleanor Thatcher

• "I think you learn that if you have a vision in your head for something, and then something happens, you've got to adapt. Coming from school and then into business, things happen that you just don't expect and learning how to adapt to that is different." - 57:45 - Eleanor Thatcher

• "It's a family business. It's all intertwined. So if there is a disagreement, it can become very personal. So, you have to be careful just to step back and go and have a nice business discussion" - 1:03:20 - Martin Thatcher

• "I think every father dreams of being able to hand on things to your children, and your children are almost showing you the way to do things better." - 1:05:35 - Martin Thatcher

As a guest on It Runs in The Family, Martin said: "Just celebrating the importance of family businesses is something which is such a good thing to do, and I know with the It Runs In the Family podcast this is certainly something you are doing.

"I just think whether you're making cider or nuts and bolts or farming, family businesses are just amazing and it's great to celebrate them."

Launched only six months ago, It Runs In The Family podcast was set up by Liz Willingham, founder and managing director of PR and communications agency Liz Lean PR, and her daughter Leila, who is business and PR account manager at the agency, and is making its mark in the podcasting arena and hitting the charts - reaching number 17 in top family business podcasts and making number 77 in the top entrepreneurship podcasts for Great Britain.

To date, the mother and daughter duo have reached listeners in 21 countries, across five continents, with their new podcast.

Visit lizleanpr.co.uk/podcast-runs-in-the-family/ to listen to episode 12 with Martin and Eleanor Thatcher.