Member Article

Business success tastes sweet

A Sunderland businesswoman has followed in her grandmothers footsteps and opened her own sweet shop.

Eve McGeorge visited the North East Business and Innovation Centre (BIC) and with the help of the Ready for Business programme her idea of selling traditional sweets became a reality.

Eve was assigned business adviser Paul Cairns and together they worked on her business idea. Eve explains:

“I quickly signed up to the Ready for Business programme as it was clear I needed to understand more about how a business works and Paul was so helpful and I still pinch myself that I work for myself.

“Through the programme I was able to receive a start up loan to help with the shop, it needed a whole refit, taking the walls back to brick work, electrics and damp proof it had been a cafe so a lot of work was needed restoring it to its former glory as a sweet shop.

“My grandma had the same shop when I was little so it was lovely to renovate it back to its roots. About 90 per cent of my customers were my grandma’s customers when they were little and they still order the same sweets now. My shop offers everything from traditional sweets to specialised American confectionary. I called the shop Bella Candy in honour of my grandma’s name, Belle.” Before Eve became her own boss she worked as a sales assistant in Next and heard about the BIC through word of mouth. Eve continue: “I saw Paul for a couple of months then before I knew it I was up and running. Paul showed me everything from how to do a business plan and financial forecast down to helping me understand what would be best sellers. The BIC were so helpful and it feels great to work for myself.”

Ready for Business, the investment ready start-up programme that supports new enterprises across the UK, has delivered more than 2,500 new jobs nationwide since its launch in 2012. The programme is supported by the Government’s Regional Growth Fund and Barclays and is delivered by the Cavendish Consortium, a partnership between some of England’s leading enterprise agencies together with the National Enterprise Network.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Sarah Spence .