Recently the business diversified again, this time into the vegetable crisp market, investing £1.4m into their existing factory on the farm.
The population of De Oude Pijp has diversified considerably since the 1960s.
Perceval produces albums, art books and poetry collections by obscure artists, and the company recently diversified into film with Jauja, the second film it has been involved in.
The hill farmers in this part of the world have always diversified, Dunning says.
The biggest of them all, PricewaterhouseCoopers, derived only about 40% of last year's revenues of $19.6 billion from traditional accounting and auditing services.The firms are diversified conglomerates that span the globe hand-in-hand with their clients.
A former executive of Blue Circle, a British cement maker, once said that his company diversified into lawn mowers in the 1980s (it bought the Qualcast brand) on no firmer grounds than "your garden is next to your house".Today, the focus among manufacturing industries is on "core competencies".
And Mr Mistry's previous firm (from which he will stand down) diversified under his watch.So a sudden change of tack looks unlikely.
IFI itself is diversified, owning a stake of 1.2% in Sanpaolo IMI (a bank) and other lesser investments that include ownership of Juventus (a football club).
For years, stockmarkets have applied a "conglomerate discount": they value diversified manufacturing conglomerates at some 20% less, on average, than the value of the sum of their parts.
Elsewhere, farming has diversified towards other crops, market gardening and livestock.
