How Dad's Oats turned a commodity into a brand

The idea formed during a wine-tasting evening in 2015, while the siblings mused over the way vignerons told the stories behind their labels.

"We looked at what we have on our family farm and the oats were a product that Dad had won several awards for in the past at the Royal Melbourne Show and different events," Ms Cain said.

"He grew really good grain and, yet, when it's sold as a bulk commodity, it just goes out the farm gate and loses that sense of provenance and quality.

"That was when we decided we'd have a crack at trying to take this product from paddock to plate."

Dad's Oats comprises traditional rolled oats, quick oats, steel-cut oats, groats, and hand oat rollers.

Beyond oats, the Cain family grows wheat, canola and barley as well as producing prime lambs and Merino wool on its 800-hectare farm at Natte Yallock, between Maryborough and St Arnaud.

A third sibling, Matt, with wife Kate, has taken over the management of the farm from Maurice and Ruth.

Dad's Oats is profitable now but its management is still very much an after-hours and weekend affair.

Alicia works full time as a property valuer, while Pete has a small cattle farm and two other small businesses.

Even so, Ms Cain said, running Dad's Oats is becoming a bigger part of their lives, having doubled its turnover in the last two years.

Dad's Oats bought 10 per cent of the family farm's oat crops and she said it was now generating enough turnover to warrant a warehouse in Melbourne.

"It has been great in the first couple of years of business to not have to rely on the business income," Ms Cain said.

"But right from the start, we've always had confidence, even through facing the challenges, that we're able to get around them.

"The customer support and the feedback that we've had about the quality of the product has really given us that confidence to keep going."

Much of that feedback has come directly from customers at farmers' markets.

"It definitely surprised Pete and I, but it also surprised Dad, just how interested people are in their food and where it's come from," Ms Cain said.

"We've been surprised how popular the groats are, which are the whole oat grains, dehulled but not rolled.

"The little hand oat-rollers we sell, which are used to roll the the groat into freshly rolled oats, are a great point of interest to passersby at markets and it's illustrated how our customers just love the freshness and the wholesomeness of the oats and their interest in how the products been created."

Before the coronavirus restrictions, the markets were a significant part of the Dad's Oats business but its products were also sold to cafes, online, and on retail shelves.

And there was a silver lining to the closure of the farmers' markets: online sales of Dad's Oats are booming.

"It's forced our customers to go online and find our website and that's definitely a benefit for us," Ms Cain said.

"I guess the farmers' markets have been a good way for starting out; they definitely gave us that initial platform to reach customers.

"However, it's hard to scale a business from farmers' markets and we were very aware of that from the start.

"Once you're able to get an online store up and running and getting all your warehouse fulfilment and distribution under control, that's a lot easier to scale, so we're still growing our sales to cafes and retail stores and we'll continue to do that in the future."

Ms Cain had some tips for others considering taking a paddock-to-plate approach.

"Definitely use the resources that are out there," she said.

"We used crowdfunding as a platform for starting up and getting pre-orders.

"We weren't fund raising but it was an excellent marketing platform to get our brand out there.

"Prior to doing that, we did the first batch on a very small scale and tasted at at the farmers markets to go and get the customer feedback to make sure it was worthwhile doing things on a larger scale, which was very important."

Dad's Oats had made lots of small, careful steps towards success.

Ms Cain did a full-day Adobe Illustrator course and designed the product packaging herself, which was then sourced in small lots from a local supplier rather than having to import bulk quantities.

They slowly added to, and adjusted their offering along the way as the need for things like barcodes arose.

"It's just constantly learning," Ms Cain said.

"You can't really prepare yourself prior to starting the business for everything and for every challenge you're going to face so you just have to learn those lessons and keep learning as you go along."

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