Kit PetersCARMARTHENSHIRE: Tributes to Granny Dot – the 102-year-old whose £6k gamble built a £70m Welsh food giant
Heartfelt tributes have been paid to a great-grandmother whose generosity and faith in her family helped launch one of Wales’s most successful food businesses after she died at the age of 102.
Dorothy Edwards, known to all as Granny Dot, loaned 6,000 pounds to her daughter and son-in-law in 1972 to buy a frozen food shop and wholesale business in Harlech. That single act of faith laid the foundations for Harlech Foodservice, a family-run company that now employs 300 people, turns over around 70 million pounds a year, and has a depot in Carmarthen serving pubs, restaurants, schools and hospitals across Wales and beyond.
Dorothy passed away on 28 March. A celebration of her life takes place tomorrow, Friday 1 May, at 2.30pm at Telford Crematorium, with donations to the Midlands Air Ambulance.
The loan, worth around 100,000 pounds in today’s money, enabled Gill and Colin Foskett to purchase the Harlech business and begin what would become a remarkable Welsh food and drink success story. The company has since expanded to depots in Carmarthen, Caerphilly and Telford, alongside its long-established centres in Cricieth and Chester, and was named UK Food Wholesaler of the Year in 2025.
Andrew Foskett, Dorothy’s grandson and Harlech Foodservice‘s joint chairman, said the loan had been life-changing for the entire family. He said: “It is fair to say without my grandmother, Harlech Foodservice would simply not exist. The circumstances were there, the opportunity came along and the rest is history.”
Andrew recalled his grandfather Harry’s words at the time of the loan. “Giving that money was a gamble,” he said, “but I remember grandad’s comment to my dad Colin — he said if it doesn’t work out, it’s not for the want of trying. So they backed them knowing they would have the ability to make a go of it.”
Today three generations of the family work in the business, with Dorothy’s grandchildren Jonathan, Andrew and Laura in director roles and a third generation also on board. Andrew said Dorothy had followed the company’s progress right to the end. “She was over the moon about the success of the business,” he said. “Dorothy would still follow Harlech on their Facebook page in her later years — she took an ongoing interest in it.”
Dorothy was born in Shrewsbury in 1923 and met her future husband Harry through his sister Phyllis, with their first date at a fairground. During the Second World War she made Spitfire parts at a factory in Hadley while Harry served as an Army gunner in Greece. The couple married in 1945 after Harry sent a telegram from abroad asking Dorothy to arrange the wedding for his return — she had not seen him for three years.
The pair went on to have six children and run a family funeral directors business, Harry Edwards and Sons. It was money from that business that is believed to have funded the pivotal 1972 loan that changed the family’s fortunes forever.
Andrew described his grandmother as someone whose warmth and laughter filled every room. “She quite often would tell stories but laugh so much it was difficult for her to complete the story,” he said, “especially when her daughters were around because they would be laughing so much.”
Dorothy is survived by grandchildren Jonathan, Andrew, Laura, Joshua and Molly Rose, and great-grandchildren Toby, Hari, Charlie, Ella, Mili, Maisie, Joel, Nancy, Eden and Dorothy.
Her family described her as one of a kind who lived a long and beautiful life and leaves behind a lasting legacy — not just through her family, but through the hundreds of jobs and the thriving Welsh business that her generosity made possible.
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