Genius Bread

Lucinda Bruce-Gardyne is founder of Genius Bread, the gluten free bread for people who are coeliac.

Lucinda is a trained Michilen star chef and cookery book author. She started her business only 9 months ago after she was unable to find any good bread for her 7 year old gluten intolerant son to eat. After three years of baking bread every day to find the right ingredients she finally discovered what she was looking for.

Thereafter she managed to find funding to produce this recipe from an influential friend who was also gluten intolerance and who liked what she made. With the funding and the contacts she was given by him to help build the brand Lucinda has managed to spread her business far and wide within a few months.

In around 6 months she was able to sell her products in major supermarkets by proving her ability to mass produce the items and promote them herself in the markets. She took her products to a bakery who already made gluten free foods and they were willing to make her bread.

Gluten free bread was already available before Lucinda came up with the idea, however with her improved recipe making the bread fresher and more digestible, she claims to have grown the market be another 45%. Her bread is even enjoyed by those who are not coeliac but enjoy the texture and qualities of her product.

The bread cost £2.50, a lot higher than the usual range of bread, perhaps due to many of the ingredients being imported. Plans are being made by the company to lower the costs by introducing automated machinery to increase efficiency.

Plans are also being made to introduce 18 more products to Genius Bread, from scones to croissants and others, but without wanting to over stretch this new business before it has the resources.

Genius Bread

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Papa John's UK

Papa John's is an American pizza take-away with a market in Britain. They currently have 142 stores throughout the UK and have plans to open 40 more in 2010. They have seen a rise in sales for more than four years and saw a particular increase in the last winter.

The rise may owe partly to the recession as many preferred eating at home rather than going out to restaurants. Papa John's have also benefited from their new online order system where people may order even up to 14 days in advance. Thirty percent of their orders come online.

The company is one that looks for people franchising and in the last year has had around 1'200 applications. Their Managing Director Ian Saunders promises the franchisees great support before, during and after and recommends this course for those who would not want to risk running their own entrepreneurial venture in these economic times but would still like to run a business.

Source: Working Lunch, BBC. (27-01-2010)

Papa John's UK

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Business for Older People

It is often thought that entrepreneurship is for younger people, when in fact many who set up businesses tend to be elder people.

One of these people is Daksha Kumar, the Sales Director of The Indian Kitchen. She started her business when she was 59 and her food company is running quite well. Her kitchen now packs meals for Tesco after they asked if she would provide for their Asian food range. Daksha's motto is, "you're never too old to do anything".

This is the same motto Prime work by. Prime is a charity that was set up by Prince Charles with the purpose of helping over 50s set up a business. They believe that with elder peoples' many experiences and life skills they have an advantage, and with a large number of unemployed in their late 50s and early 60s starting a business is the ideal opportunity for them. (Laurie South, Chief Executive of Prime)

If somebody is interested they can visit their website at: primebusinessclub.com and get help and useful advice.

Source: Working Lunch, BBC. (27-01-2010)

Business for Older People

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New Ownership of West Ham Football Club

The famous entrepreneurs and former owners of Birmingham City Football Club, David Gold and David Sullivan, have recently bought West Ham United Football Club (WHUFC). They bought the club for £105M.

Their aim now is to get West Ham into the Champions League within 7 years. They also hope to use the new Olympic Stadium after the Games in 2012.

Source: Working Lunch, BBC. (19-01-2010)

New Ownership of West Ham Football Club

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