HILLTREK Clothing was set up in 1983 and was taken over by Dave Shand in 2003. It makes outdoor wear named after places in Scotland and last year won a battle with the National Trust for Scotland over the use of the name Glencoe. The business is now expanding across Europe but Shand is keen to keep its Scottish identity.

Name: Dave Shand
Age: 65
Position: Director

WHAT’S YOUR BUSINESS CALLED?
Hilltrek Clothing

WHERE IS IT BASED?
Aberdeen

WHY DID YOU SET UP THE BUSINESS?
THE business was set up 35 years ago by the previous owner. She made rather unique fleeces for her kids for skiing. It was so popular that she soon sold to others. Lots of people in Aberdeen knew about it but not really anywhere else. I have a degree in physics and worked in the offshore industry. I am a passionate outdoors person and a keen hillwalker. I used the products and was aware of the business and took over in 2003.

The National:
Dave Shand, owner of Hilltrek Clothing

HOW DOES IT WORK?
I HAVE been in business before. I was a senior manager at an offshore business so when I bought the company I set up a website and started selling outside Aberdeen and the UK. Our exports are now 30% of the business and rest of the UK sales are another 30% of the company. The US is a big market for us and the northern countries of Europe like Canada, Germany, France and Scandanavian countries. What they find attractive about us is that we manufacture the products in Scotland.

WHAT IS YOUR TARGET MARKET?
THE business started off in hillwalking but we have diversified since then. We appeal to people who are into bushcraft, bird watching and people who are interested in field sports. We make specialist cyclist clothing too.

HOW IS IT DIFFERENT FROM COMPETING BUSINESSES?
MANY companies can’t claim to design and make the product in Scotland. We are also really into customisation, for instance, we can give the buyer studs instead of Velcro and can add pockets and things like that. As far as I know we are the only ones doing that. There’s a company in England that customises down jackets and one in the US that customises as well but that’s all. We don’t use Gor-Tex – we use very different fabrics from typical stuff you can get. We are a small and passionate team and test the clothing ourselves as we are all interested in the outdoors. We are also very reactive – we won’t spend years deliberating over an idea.

We call our products after Scottish hills and moors. The National Trust incident propelled our name in the UK rather than in Scotland. It didn’t impact our export business but we had some suppliers in Scotland who contacted us who didn’t know we existed. We have changed to some local distributors of pieces we use in clothing which was a positive result of it.

WHAT DO YOU ENJOY MOST ABOUT RUNNING THE BUSINESS?
WITH the business being based in Scotland we are close to customers. We are also close to the outdoors – you can walk from the business and up a Monroe in four hours.

WHERE DO YOU HOPE THE BUSINESS WILL BE IN 10 YEARS’ TIME?
WE would want to still be successful. I don’t think we would want to be a big multinational. We sell directly. We don’t want to sell through other shops, we want a sustainable business going ahead.

We want to keep our Scottish roots but want to be successful in the states and Scandinavia. The challenge with stocking in other shops is you lose a significant part of profit and lose customer service control which is a big thing with us.

The customer knows who makes the garments because we write it on the label. The customers love that. Our staff base must increase in the next 10 years but not hugely.

We are worried about Brexit. We have a lot of business going into Europe. Shipping to Finland right now is easy. We are waiting on a Brexit deal. I expect trading will now mean more admin for us, similar to the paperwork we do for the states at the moment.

Brexit has made the value of the pound drop so our products are cheaper for overseas markets. In terms of our raw materials the fabric is from Switzerland and the price has gone up. The consumers losing the cut are UK ones.