Here's how a blind man from Donegal built a business in his spare room

WITH HIS VISION, he knew he would never be able to read the sign. After months of searching and working odd jobs, Derek Walker had finally managed to get a position at a local garage sweeping floors, however, it wasn’t long before the owner realised that there was something amiss.

“Eventually the owner realised that I wasn’t able to see things. He asked me to read a sign and I couldn’t. He asked me to leave,” Walker tells Fora. “It was probably my own fault.”

The Letterkenny, Donegal, native was reluctant to tell potential employers that he suffers from Stargardt disease, a hereditary condition which causes progressive vision loss. The disorder, which normally makes itself known in a person when they are going through puberty, first began to show in Walker when he was 12.

“By age 13 I was registered as legally blind and my eyesight was deteriorating rapidly,” he says. “Education was a big challenge with adapting to losing my sight and I didn’t get a Leaving Cert, I did Leaving Cert applied instead.”

By his own account, Walker “floated around life” for a few years after leaving secondary school in 2005, working odd jobs and trying to secure decent employment. Although his sight is poor, Walker still has some peripheral vision and can move without a walking stick or guide dog.

“I was always afraid of people finding out (and that) it may have scared some people off,” he says.

“I wanted to choose the right time to tell people. I always felt like if I could get through the group stages of interviews and talk to people one to one they could see the value of me.”

Walker, now 28, was unable to find a job and spent several years unemployed before cobbling together some money to start a part-time counselling course in a nearby college in Derry in 2011.

While studying Walker, took wheatgrass juice to try and help with an inflammation in his knee. Feeling that it helped his knee, and noticing the growing healthy eating trend in Letterkenny, in 2014 Walker decided to try and produce the juice himself.

What do you do and how long have you done it for?

Wheatgrass juice is a bit of a pain to produce. As well as requiring a special blender – “they cost about €200″ according to Walker – the juice also reacts poorly with the air, oxidising quickly and losing much of its nutritional benefits.

However, the juice is full of vitamins and chlorophyll, and only a small amount is required to equate to one of an adult’s five a day servings. Walker realised that if he could freeze the juice as soon as it was produced, it would keep its nutrition for much longer and could then be sold in shops.

“I was on a blind person’s pension and was allowed onto a scheme by the Department of Social Protection (the Back to Work Enterprise Allowance) where I could keep 100% of my payments for the first year and 75% for the second,” he says.

“I got into production in my house (using) a spare room as a growing room and got the environmental health office to inspect the premises. The local development office gave me €2,500 to get equipment (so) I bought a blast freezer and got into production.”

When Walker approached some of his local shops to see if they would be interested in selling his frozen 30ml shots of wheatgrass juice, a local Centra store agreed to give it a go.

Simply Natural Health wheatgrass juice shots

The product proved popular and Walker settled on a name, Simply Natural Health, for his new business as it continued to expand. He continued approaching shops and got in touch with a local Tesco to see if it would stock his product.

The suggestion was ran past the company’s office in Dublin, which took an interest. “I didn’t really expect to hear back (but) they asked for more info, we met in Dublin and they signed off on the product several weeks later,” Walker says.

Walker, now 28-years-old with a fiance and a 10 week old son, is planning to rebrand his juice as ‘Natnoot’ and roll it out in nine Tesco stores later this year in what will come as a huge boost for the fledgling startup.

What are your costs and how do you make money?

At the moment, Simply Natural Health is mostly run by Derek Walker. He grows the wheatgrass, juices and freezes it and helps deliver it to stores, where it sells for between €5 and €6 for a pack of four and €12 for a pack of eight.

“The biggest expense is my time, the timing of the juicing and freezing (and) I grow the wheatgrass myself,” he says. “(But) I’ve received more help than a normal person would get and my fiance Anna helps out with deliveries.”

Simply Natural Health founder Derek Walker

Walker now supplies about 20 stores and as production started to rise he moved production into the 10,000 square foot-state-of-the-art premises in Carrygally Business Park, just minutes away from his house. This new base is probably Derek’s biggest expense at the moment, apart from his time.

“The business is profitable and last year it turned over about €55,000, this year will probably be about €70,000-€80,000,” he says. “I don’t know how much it will go up once we get into Tesco, potentially a massive amount.”

“We will hopefully launch in Tesco before Christmas (and) once we get the orders from them I will have to start employing other people. The first stage of expansion will require two people and judging by the success of orders we will take on more afterwards.”

 What is your market?

The company’s wheatgrass juice is pitched at the health and fitness market, with Walker saying: the company’s customers “are people looking for a healthy lifestyle”.

“Lots of our customers are sportspeople, or it might be people looking to do a detox or looking for a boost of vitamins,” he says.

Walker sells his wheatgrass juice to about 20 different shops, the bulk of which are based either in Donegal or Derry.

He has looked to drum up customers through a couple of different outlets. Initially finding it difficult to sell his juice at local car booth sales, Walker banded together with some other local food and drink producers to set up an artisan food market.

The food market in Letterkenny

Once the deal with Tesco is secure Walker says that he will also look to target other chains such as Centra and SuperValu, adding that “independent health food shops, as well as butchers,” are possibilities.

“The aim is that anywhere you can find frozen vegetables you can find wheatgrass. Many people view it as a luxury product and I want to make it more everyday.”

What is the competition?

There are several other small wheatgrass juice producers in Ireland, although, like Walker, the bulk aren’t of a significant size yet.

Perhaps more visible to the common are the shops on the high street, like Holland & Barretts, that sell wheatgrass powder.

Walker is mindful of both potential rivals, and says that his production methods will help to keep him ahead.

“There are loads of small producers out there doing wheatgrass and several are frozen. The main thing for us is that we will be certified organic soon, we have very high food safety standards and we are getting our product into as many outlets as possible,” he says.

However, Walker says that the firm is really in competition with any other clean living product on the shelves.

“What I view as our competition is any healthy product. If someone on an average wage has about €50 a week to spend on healthy products that’s it, so every product in those shops are competition, we are all competing for disposable income,” he says.

What is your vision?

The agreement with Tesco is the next big step for the company. Walker says he was initially offered a deal that would have seen his juice stocked in over 30 different Tesco stores, but turned it down because he did not want to scale up too quickly.

However, longer term getting into 30 stores and more is the aim, with Walker even casting an eye across the Atlantic.

“We just want to get onto as many shelves and into as many shops as possible, I want to make wheatgrass as normal as a bottle of orange juice,” he says. “I chose to work with Tesco because they offer the chance to export to the UK.

“America is the ultimate aim for me, I think Donegal wheatgrass juice would be very popular in certain states like Boston, but that’s all way down the line. I want to conquer the Irish market first.”

Walker says that his experience and setting up his business has changed him, and adds that it has helped to give him confidence.

“I was scared of going through life with my condition. I don’t want it to define me but it is part of my story, it has helped me to find the entrepreneur that is a part of me. Without my condition I may have just gone into a regular job,” he says. “This (the business) has instilled confidence in me.

Walker says that it is difficult sometimes, particularly with a young son who has shared a house with him and his fiance for less than three months, however, he says that it also helps to spur him on.

“I’m focused on creating value with the business and providing an income for me and my family,” he says.

“There are nights where I miss my son going to bed or I might be away before he gets up, and it is hard, but I want to do that because I want to give him everything that I want him to have.

“That is what I tell myself during those jobs and that is what I’m doing it for.”