In khaki shorts

Building a business takes time. Some people appear to succeed in doing it very quickly - maybe their brains work faster or they think for longer, successfully cramming more into a day than I do. We were fortunate with Discovery Foods, entering the Mexican market fray at a time when interest in ethnic food was growing, cooking sauces in jars were launched and the great British public began to increasingly look at "going abroad" for their holidays - consequently becoming more susceptible to trying something slightly different. Break-the-mould restaurant chains were springing up, first with Bob Peyton's My Kinda Town restaurants like the Chicago Rib Shack, and TGI Fridays, which wowed the restaurant world with their zany, badge- bedecked "personality" waiters, super friendly service and sense of theatre. These were happy days for a company selling tortillas, chips and salsa, jalapeno peppers and the like.

We suffered small inconveniences, like very limited distribution of our products in supermarkets - and the daily struggle to get our products to restaurants, because catering wholesalers were very wary of these new, not understood products, and were reluctant to stock them. For most of the accounts we approached, we had to spend many months in the education business - sampling, teaching and demonstrating, before we could make major sales.

It is fun reminiscing with long-serving staff members about the amusing and curious incidents that occurred along the way. One year at the Brighton Fast Food Show a Discovery colleague, dressed in pith helmet and khakis, joined "The Green Goddess" (the lithesome gym instructor who then graced breakfast TV), for a workout outside The Grand Hotel to promote the show. Still panting from the exertion, he returned to the exhibition and went to change out of his gear in the minute storage room to the side of our stand.