PEDIGREE Suffolk sheep are not a typical catalyst for entrepreneurs, but for Heather Gorringe, founder of Wiggly Wigglers, they were the inspiration that set her on her business path.
Her father, an agricultural contractor, had a herd of pedigree Suffolk sheep and Gorringe was given the job of looking after them.
“We had a small amount of land and a very large pile of manure so I started looking at ways that I could reduce the amount of waste,” she said.
After doing some research, she came across the idea of worm composting. “I thought, wow, this is great, you can actually reduce the volume of waste using worms.”
Gorringe studied design at art school but, instead of pursuing a career in design, she went to work for her father because she wanted to learn how to run a business.
“My father built up his business from nothing and I wanted the same sort of independence,” she said. “So I spent time looking for something that really interested me with a view to setting up my own small business.”
Working for her father was hard. It involved draining fields, making roads and ponds and driving huge agricultural machinery. At the same time Gorringe also worked in a local pub and at a tie printer.
She had been daydreaming about a number of possible business ideas, but decided a worm composter was the best.
So in 1990, at the age of 26, Gorringe started making very simple test kits using apple boxes and worms from a fishing-tackle shop. “It seemed to work really well, and it also reduced the waste but, crucially, it took away the smell.”
This was a vital factor in her plans because she thought that a smelly composting unit in the garden would put many people off recycling their waste.
“I couldn’t help but think that it would be really good if this could work. You could compost waste that you hadn’t thought about, like kitchen waste, and end up with a really good product.”
But before she could get her composter to market, Gorringe needed to test it. So one day, feeling bold, she simply called her local council and convinced it to take 30 boxes to test.
“I phoned them and said that I had this potential worm-composting product. It was amazing for them to test it because at the time it was quite a ridiculous idea.”
Using the feedback from the council, Gorringe was able to improve the composter, and soon found her first customer.
“My first order came from a company that had a conventional composting kit, and it thought using worms was a great idea, and the compost produced was better quality.”
In the beginning, Gorringe continued to work in the pub and at the tie printer, which meant it was difficult for the venture to grow, but when she married and moved to her husband Phil’s farm in Herefordshire, she found she had room to expand.
“There was a whole set of redundant stables, so I had some space to play with, which meant I could stock products and actually operate as a business.”
Growth required investment and so Gorringe mortgaged her home to raise £15,000. This initial fund paid for the first lot of stock and a brochure. “It enabled me to survive for the first couple of years on a hand-to-mouth basis,” she said.
Gorringe decided that her composters were better suited to mail-order than being stocked in garden centres so she started taking stands at local agricultural shows.
“The product needed quite a bit of explanation but I felt that was a good thing because I could become a specialist in the area.”
Sales grew largely by word of mouth as Gorringe asked customers to recommend her firm to other people and pass on her catalogue.
The main hurdle in the beginning was the name, and Gorringe found it frustrating when people did not take her seriously.
“Some of the feedback was negative in the sense that people tended to laugh because I had called the company Wiggly Wigglers.”
But the name did draw attention to the company in other ways and Wiggly Wigglers started being written about in gardening magazines.
Gorringe knew she would have to extend her range of merchandise if the business was to succeed. So she added more composters to the range in her mail-order catalogue – and now website – as well as gardening tools, bird boxes and pest-control products.
This year the business will have sales of £3m, and Gorringe – last year’s winner of the Farmers Weekly Alternative Enterprise Award – has big plans.
She said: “We are on a mission, and we want to change the way people garden in Britain. No less than 12.5% of Britain’s land is garden, so we can make a real difference to the wildlife habitat. We are convinced that if you garden for wildlife, it is much better for you as well, because it is such a pleasure to have wildlife in your garden.”
Now aged 42 and the mother of one son, Gorringe is very positive about others taking the first step and starting their own company. “It’s a great thing to start your own business if you possibly can. But whatever you do, don’t take yourself too seriously,” she said.
