You know it’s a good sign when the Christmas toy catalogue, which had its pages turned up and down over several weeks, is dismissed in favour of a new catalogue. In our house, the replacement Christmas ‘book’ was from Farm Wardrobe, the Delvin, Co Westmeath-based company that specialises in all things to wear out and about on the farm.

Alison Beattie is the managing director of Farm Wardrobe. Growing up in Co Antrim, she was surrounded with agriculture and her love for it stemmed from there. Both her parents were involved in the industry – her mother selling animal feed and her dad installing milking parlours – so she spent considerable time in her youth travelling around to dairy farms.

The Beattie kids Alexandra, Harry & William model some of the farm wardrobe kids options.

With a degree in animal science from Harper Adams under her belt, Alison worked in the pedigree sector and as a marketing manager in the UK before returning to Ireland.

Aside from Farm Wardrobe, which she founded in 2011, she is also dairy farming with her husband Norris. Living on the farm with three small children of her own, Alison is pretty familiar with what is required when out and about.

The COVID-19 impact

For some businesses, COVID-19 has been positive. Alison explains that as people have been spending more time at home, their “online sales have rocketed”. But the company is not resting on its laurels and is constantly improving its systems, particularly the all-important website.

“We did launch a new website that is more mobile friendly in mid-September - the timing was just perfect. But we have a shop, we have telephones, we have WhatsApp, we have any type of communications you want. We don’t do smoke signals yet, but we do everything else,” she laughs.

Business to business

In terms of the business to business (B2B) end of it, the company works with a lot of the agricultural colleges and local companies. On the more personal family side, the pink kid’s overalls are very popular. They do bundles that are specific to certain markets, dependent on the requirements of the user, such as a show coat or a jacket and bobble hat.

Personalisation

Why do children write their names on walls? Because they like to personalise the house of course.What’s a much better thing to personalise? Yes, you guessed it, their clothes. Farm Wardrobe has a massive logo library to choose from. And it’s not just for kids – there are a variety of logos to choose from that will best represent your breed, agri business or farm.

In Farm Wardrobe, 99% of the clothes purchased are personalised and this is all done in-house.

On the success of the business, Alison says that she has found a niche, pure and simple.

“I have found that niche [farm clothing] and I know that there is massive potential in this market. We never tire of finding new ideas, we keep on trucking because we know that there is nobody else in this marketplace that is doing what we are doing.”

Keeping ahead of the market sees Alison actively looking for products that are suited to farmers, which has taken her to promotional trade shows as far away as Las Vegas.

What makes you different?

“We are pretty passionate about it because we live on a farm and we eat and sleep farming. I help my husband with the cows in the morning and at weekends,” Alison says.

“Farmers come in for the personalisation. They can go online and get a jacket from anywhere, but they want something that is good quality. We have great loyal customers that keep coming back because the embroidery is so good and the products in the selection are good quality.

“The only problem is that they last too long,” she laughs.

Where Alison sees the future of Farm Wardrobe is continuing to hunt for new products, but also focusing on their customer service offering.

“We are customer service-driven. Farmers like to ring and chat to us. We like it all to be on a first-name basis. You can’t ask Amazon what size your overalls are. They can’t advise you. If you are a first-time online buyer and you are not sure what it will look like, we will send you a WhatsApp picture.” For more information, visit www. https://farm-wardrobe.com/

Good for parents

The two McKeever women, Raine and Dia, gave the clothing a thorough trial.

As their mother, I can testify that if your children behave as normal human beings, they will remain dry.

However, if they are adamant about getting soaked to the bone, not even Farm Wardrobe can protect you.

Due to this little experiment – I can also attest to the wash-well, dry-quick performance of the clothes.