Member Article

Schoolboy opens online sweetshop

A nine year-old boy has launched an online sweet shop for children, selling mud, worms and aliens.

Henry Patterson designed the product range, came up with idea for the logo and decided on the name for the business based on his mother’s response whenever he asks her for sweets.

No one knows the type of sweets that children like better than a child,“ says Henry, founder of Not Before Tea.

“Sweets must be as fun as toys and do stuff,” he adds. As well as ensuring that each jar was an adventure in its own right, Henry set out to solve the biggest problem with confectionery - how to soften the blow when the sweets are all gone. Not Before Tea products come with glass pens to decorate the jars.

Henry also includes reward stickers for grown-ups to give children to make sure they clean their teeth. “I hate cleaning my teeth after I have eaten sweets but love getting stickers at the dentist. That’s how I got the idea,” he says.

The Not Before Tea website is part of his mother’s online shop Sherbet Pip, but Henry has plans to go solo before his tenth birthday. He is now looking for retail outlets to stock his products.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Rebecca Gunn .