42 Degrees - Business from a different angle

Like Marmite, builder's tea and digestive biscuits, the Fisherman's Friend feels like a peculiarly British invention. With its flow-wrap pack and retro trawler boat logo, it's one of those background products that seem to have been around forever.

It also seems to be everywhere, quietly lingering on counters and shelves in every chemist's and confectioner's in the land – although you rarely pay it much attention unless you're ill. But it's hard to imagine foreigners taking to its powerful original recipe containing liquorice, eucalyptus, menthol and capsicum – or to any of the other seven varieties come to that.

Appearances, however, can be deceptive. This understated little homebody of a lozenge is in fact a global phenomenon available in 120 countries from Norway to South Africa and the USA to Korea, with retail sales worth over £150m a year.

Perhaps even more surprising is the fact that the worldwide success of the Fisherman's Friend is not down to the marketing muscle of a huge multinational nor the thrust of some testosterone-charged young entrepreneur. No, the driving force behind the growth of the brand is Doreen Lofthouse, a humble and gently-spoken 74-year-old who left school at 15 with no particular ambition and claims to have no particular interest in money.

"My definition of success is to prove that you run a caring company with the highest ethical standards that looks after its employees," she says in her soothing Lancashire lilt.

Nonetheless, Lofthouse of Fleetwood Limited, the family company of which she is chairman, while husband Tony and son Duncan are joint managing directors, is highly profitable and the family features regularly in the Sunday Times Rich List.

Not bad for a company competing with just one product that can be knocked up in any kitchen. For that is pretty much how Fisherman's Friends were made when Doreen married Tony. "The Lofthouses ran a small chemist and gift shop in Fleetwood which was a seaside resort. The lozenges were made by hand on a marble slab and we packed them by hand," she says.

She soon spotted the possibility for modest growth. "People loved them and the product sold so well that when the shop closed for the winter season I started selling them in chemists around the area."

Now you couldn't quite call the Fisherman's Friend an instant success because the family had been making them since 1865. They were invented by Tony's great grandfather, James, to help fishermen with respiratory problems working in the extreme conditions of the Icelandic deep-sea fishing grounds. But they had never been sold outside of Fleetwood.

"The product was sold in bottles. He recommended that if you had aches and pains you rubbed it on the joints. And if you had a cough, you put a few drops on a sugar cube and sucked it," says Mrs Lofthouse. "As bottles tended to break at sea, James Lofthouse began to mix his formula with a dough, which was then cut into the tablets that form the basis of today's Fisherman's Friend."

Mrs Lofthouse says she knew in her bones that her product had real potential almost as soon as she started selling it in the surrounding Lancashire towns. "They always wanted more. So I was doing hundred-hour weeks, selling by day and packing by night."

Within a couple of years, demand was sufficient for her to suggest that the family take out a small loan to build a proper production facility. They borrowed £3,000 from a slightly sceptical local bank and bought a small factory. "My husband thought I was crazy. But I had no moments of doubt. I was the selling person and I had complete faith in the quality of the product," she says.

Soon Fisherman's Friends were selling all over Lancashire and Yorkshire and within two years the Lofthouses needed new premises. In 1972 they invested in a 20,000 square-foot purpose-built unit on an industrial estate in Fleetwood. Fisherman's Friend was now a national brand although it remained relatively small beer at that time.

The turning point came in 1973, following 11 years of hard work. Out of the blue the Lofthouses received a telephone call from a UK-based distribution company called Impex Management. "This man asked if he could distribute Fisherman's Friend in other countries. He seemed trustworthy, so we said yes."

"We agreed to send one case off to Norway free of charge. They arrived and flew out of the shops like rockets," says Mrs Lofthouse. "The effects of the distribution deal were immediate. Norwegian wholesalers couldn't believe what happened when they got that free box. They immediately put in an order for a container load. I felt that the flood gates had opened." Neighbouring countries Finland and Sweden soon followed with similar results.

"At that time I believed they would only sell to cold countries," she says. But she was wrong. Perhaps against her instincts, her distributors tried selling the product in Italy and Greece – with similar results.

The rest, as they say, is history. Today the Lofthouse family employs nearly 300 staff in its factory, which has been extended many times since it was built and now covers 400,000 square feet. Although clearly very wealthy, Mrs Lofthouse seems most proud of the community they have created in Fleetwood. "We pay people well and offer them good terms and conditions. That's why many of our people have been working here for 30 years," she says proudly.