Running a successful business usually involves working long hours and making huge efforts to ensure customers are satisfied. That could apply to many companies, but when it comes to the dairy industry, it is particularly true of the people who ensure fresh milk, butter and eggs are on our breakfast table every day, Bob Bentley has spent a lifetime working in the trade, starting at 15 when he became a yard boy for the Express Dairies depot in Pony Road, Cowley.

Now he has just bought his own depot, Brazier’s Dairies in Bicester, and is looking to expand it as a legacy for his son, Martin, the company’s sales representative, who has been brought up in the industry.

Mr Bentley, 52, said: “I wanted to buy the business as a pension and I wanted to make sure my son had a good future, so it made sense.”

In keeping with this, Mr Bentley has left the day-to-day running of the Bicester operation to his wife Sharon and Martin, 23, as he is continuing to work as sales director for Roy Brazier, who runs eight further depots across the south. It is a challenge that has been embraced by Mrs Bentley at the business which employs 15 people.

She explained: “I find running your own business more rewarding and it is good to see it building up. It can be a little fraught at times, but it is exciting.”

The company supplies about 15 of the Oxford colleges, including the larger ones such as Christ Church, with milk, butter, eggs and cheese.

It also supplies independent schools such as the Dragon School in north Oxford, Headington School, and Marlborough College in Wiltshire, along with care and nursing homes across the area, as far as Northampton.

Mrs Bentley said: “It is very much a wholesale operation — the cheese comes in five kilogram blocks and the eggs are delivered by the trolley-load.”

But having a solid customer base is proving invaluable for the new management team.

Mr Bentley said: “The colleges tend to be very loyal to you, unless something goes badly wrong, and it is the same story with the schools.”

In fact Mr Bentley has worked for Brazier’s Dairy for 28 years. The association began when the farmer in Brill he was working for was bought out by Brazier’s and he continued to manage it, focusing on growing a doorstep delivery business.

It moved to Bicester three years ago and, in the intervening years the business has flourished and now has an annual turnover of £2.5m.

While buying a business at the onset of a recession could have been interpreted as a challenge, it was the combination of experience and knowledge of the company from the inside out that has kept it successful.

Mr Bentley took advantage of the Government’s Enterprise Finance Guarantee scheme that provides a 75 per cent guarantee for loans for businesses which do not have the required security available.

It is one of the first businesses in the country to benefit, and it was arranged by the NatWest bank, which also provided finance.

Clare Culkin, the Bicester-based NatWest business manager, said: “I’m thrilled that Bob and Sharon are doing so well and that, through the EFG scheme, we have been able to make their dream of buying this business become a reality.

“Bob, Sharon and their team have put a lot of time and energy into continuously developing this business, and have sensibly taken advantage of all the help and advice available to them. It’s great to see all their hard work paying off — they are living proof that local businesses are still thriving.”

And Mr Bentley is hopeful of being able to expand the business in the future, confident in the belief that people will always want to drink fresh milk and eat good-quality food.

He said: “I would like to double the size of the business in the next ten years, although it is early days yet, and we will just have to wait and see.”