Charlie Fermor from Perry Court Farm with his apple crisps

by Tim Collins

A farmer who created apple crisps using produce from his parents' land is set to net a fortune when he begins to export them around the world.

Charlie Fermor's father Martin and mother Heidi Fermor own and run Perry Court Farm in Bilting.

Charlie started his brand of healthy snack foods, Apple Crisps, after buying a state-of-the-art drying machine from the United States.

The young entrepreneur turned a spare room in his student house in Reading into a production facility, drying apples and pears to be bagged as a healthier alternative to fried potato crisps.

In September 2009, Charlie returned from university to the family farm to develop his business - using apples and pears grown at Perry Court Farm.

His customer base quickly grew and he had sold more than 50,000 bags of the snacks in 37 outlets across the country - including in the farm shop at Perry Court Farm - by the age of 22.

Charlie took a conscious decision to avoid the supermarkets and sell directly to shopkeepers, businesses and customers.

Now 25, Charlie is hoping to take the world by storm, and has taken orders in the 10s and hundreds of thousands from Australia, China and even the United Arab Emirates.

About the rapid expansion of the business, he said: "I had a house with a spare room at uni, and actually bought the dehydrator as an experiment to create fruit leathers.

"That was unfortunately a complete failure, but the fruit crisps really seemed to work.

"The main reason for avoiding the supermarkets was to build a loyal customer base, to test the product out on.

"The dominance of the big supermarkets was something I wasn't ready for, so the next logical thing was to start exporting.

"The rest of Europe has taken of really well, as has China, Australia and the Middle East - anywhere that’s got a pre-existing market for apples, funnily enough."