HE MAY have been "retired" for more than ten years, but Boyd Tunnock still arrives at the factory that bears his name every morning at 6am. The 76-year-old patriarch is almost as iconic as the caramel wafers, teacakes and coconut-covered snowballs his Uddingston factory produces.
He is often referred to as the Willy Wonka of Tannochside, a designation he clearly loves. Nor is he afraid of appearing the eccentric. He has given up arriving at the factory in his Rolls-Royce. But since he has lived in the same house only 300 yard
s away most of his life, arriving in the luxury car was more a piece of theatre than it was necessary for transportation.
A few years back Boyd suffered a mild heart attack, and his doctors warned him he needed to get out walking in the fresh air a bit. So now he walks to the factory every day instead. If they told him it was time to take it easy, to retire, he has clearly ignored their advice.
The business was founded by his grandfather, Thomas – the company's name is still Thomas Tunnock Ltd. Boyd's father, Archie, was the innovator who created the confections that are now famous in Scotland and also, for some reason, in Saudia Arabia and Newfoundland.
Boyd, who has been at the helm since 1982 after his father died, has been running the ship steady. He has passed the day-to-day operation of the business to his daughter, Karen Loudon, and her husband Fergus, but Fergus is clear on who is boss.
"Boyd is still the steamship commander," says Loudon, who after 23 years with the business jokes he is still an apprentice. "One of (Boyd's] ambitions is to outlive his father. His father was 86 when he was still coming into the factory two or three days a week before he died. His second ambition is to live to 100 and I am quite sure he will achieve it."
If Loudon feels at all impatient with the large-looming presence of his father-in-law he does nothing to betray it. But Boyd is also still the majority owner of the business. His three daughters each share about a third of it among themselves, the rest is all him.
His wealth is estimated to be about £30 million. With a turnover of about £32m, Tunnock's isn't Scotland's largest family-owned business, but it is one of its most well-known.
Some of the best-known Scottish brands have achieved a cult status. Irn-Bru has created its own myths – being made of Forth Rail Bridge girders, for instance. Tunnock's is another cult. Its biggest export market is, inexplicably, the Middle East. But the story goes that the Saudi king once decreed a Tunnock's caramel wafer be added to the free lunch boxes given to all the children in the kingdom and years later it is still a top seller in Bahrain, Qatar, Oman.
The market is not the expat community demanding familiar sweets, as has been argued before. Rather, it is those grown children still eating their favourite treat.
Tunnock's confectionery is often name-checked by A-list celebrities and its distinctive packaging design, largely unchanged since the 1950s, enjoys free advertising by appearing in films. There are Tunnock's fan clubs, including the St Andrews University Tunnock's Caramel Wafer Appreciation Society.
It was this group in the 1980s that became the beneficiary of former poet laureate Ted Hughes's largess when he donated to them three caramel wafer-inspired poems written on Tunnocks wrappers.
A few years ago, one of these went for £575 at auction. It read: "St Columbus ate a heifer
then wrote a psalm on the hide
Good News!
So I ate a caramel wafer
and rhymed on the wrapper's inside."
Despite once splashing out £5,000 to buy two tickets to meet pop star Madonna back stage, Boyd for the most part appears nonchalant about the famous names his products attract. But he is far from relaxed about the fame of his wafers and teacakes.
Like his alter ego Wonka, Boyd has a flair for publicity. When he bought roses for all his female staff one Valentine's Day, the media certainly heard about it. He also made eyes pop when he auctioned off one of his Rollers – a rare Silver Seraph – and raised £160,000 for charity.
Although he has threatened his family he will buy a computer one day, Boyd remains steadfastly unwired – according to Loudon the only "electronic wizardry" on his desk is a battery-powered calculator.
Yet aware of the power of the brand, the managment is looking to exploit its cult status to the youth market by marketing on Facebook and Bebo.
This is driven by Boyd's insistence on keeping up with the what his customers are saying and doing. When the Tunnock's team comes back from demonstrations at a supermarket, the first thing he asks is "what did the customers say?" And while it was his father who invented the caramel wafer, the snowball and the teacake, Boyd's legacy has been to not mess with what works.
There's no innovation like the rasberry-flavoured Kit-Kat or "New" Coke – all famous flops that diminished rather than enhanced the original brand. Boyd's legacy will be that of the mechanical wizard, keeping the factory at the cutting edge of the manufacturing process.
"There is a perception by a section of the populace there are people making caramel wafers by hand and scraping chocolate on by hand," says Loudon. But this is not realistic. "We are making 60 tonnes of chocolate a week."
Instead, the firm invests heavily in new machinery, and Boyd likes to tinker with it himself. Where his father showed staff how to dollop marshmallow on a teacake by hand, Boyd oversaw the design of a machine that could do it more effectively.
It has meant that jobs at the factory have changed, and Boyd is unsentimental about that. In 1994 he shut down the bakery his grandfather founded. It was a 100-year-old Uddingston institution and more than 100 people lost their jobs.
He cited competition of the supermarket bakeries and the fact it was losing money. Instead, Boyd focused on the manufacturing side and the supermarkets are now his best customers.
Last year, the group made £1.4 million in profit, but the company is only now emerging from a rocky patch. The previous year, after the firm's first profits warning in its 119-year history, Boyd revealed profits had slumped to £452,000. The factory's famously loyal staff – the company has an enviably low turnover – had even gone on strike.
The company is recovering – albeit Loudon says they are still not where they should be. But like his wafers, and his Rolls-Royces, Boyd himself remains a classic. "That is what industry is sadly lacking – people like Boyd Tunnock," says Loudon. "We are lacking those type of business leaders."
BACKGROUNDBoyd Tunnock, 76, is a philanthropist and the third generation behind Tunnock's. He joined the family business based in Uddingston at the age of 15. Although there were brief stints as a rally driver – racing against the likes of Formula One ace Jackie Stewart – Boyd has been devoted to the family empire all his career, building a successful business that employs nearly 600 people – the area's most significant private employer.
Married to Anne for 52 years, they have three daughters – Leslie, Karen and Fiona. Karen and her husband Fergus will be the fourth generation to head the business, although Tunnock insists he does not plan to retire before he is 100.
Tunnock's makes between ten and 12 million biscuits and cakes each week.
