Originally written by James Cadbury on Small Business
Love Cocoa is the luxury, ethical chocolate start-up created by James Cadbury (great-great-great grandson of Cadbury founder John Cadbury).
Based in Dalston, London, Love Cocoa has five full-time staff, while production of its handmade chocolate is outsourced to a family-run factory based in Stoke.
The brand offers luxury, ethical chocolate sustainably sourced from Columbia, palm-oil free with 100 per cent recyclable packaging and compostable inners made from wood pulp. Quirky flavours included gin and tonic, avocado and birthday cake.
The brand turned down an investment offer from Dragons’ Den in 2018 and has grown 400 per cent since to become a million-pound brand.
Love Cocoa is about to redesign its brand and launch a tree-planting project – “One bar = one tree”; for every Love Cocoa product sold, the company will plant a tree in partnership with the charity Trees for the Future, with the aim of planting over 500,000 trees in northern Cameroon in 2020, helping cocoa farmers gain a much needed second source of income while combating deforestation and climate change.
>See also: Coronavirus small business diary – Alessandro Savelli, Pasta Evangelists
25th January
We begin to think that the path ahead might be tricky when the bespoke
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Coronavirus small business diary – James Cadbury, Love Cocoa
by James Cadbury • • 0 Comments
Originally written by James Cadbury on Small Business
Love Cocoa is the luxury, ethical chocolate start-up created by James Cadbury (great-great-great grandson of Cadbury founder John Cadbury).
Based in Dalston, London, Love Cocoa has five full-time staff, while production of its handmade chocolate is outsourced to a family-run factory based in Stoke.
The brand offers luxury, ethical chocolate sustainably sourced from Columbia, palm-oil free with 100 per cent recyclable packaging and compostable inners made from wood pulp. Quirky flavours included gin and tonic, avocado and birthday cake.
The brand turned down an investment offer from Dragons’ Den in 2018 and has grown 400 per cent since to become a million-pound brand.
Love Cocoa is about to redesign its brand and launch a tree-planting project – “One bar = one tree”; for every Love Cocoa product sold, the company will plant a tree in partnership with the charity Trees for the Future, with the aim of planting over 500,000 trees in northern Cameroon in 2020, helping cocoa farmers gain a much needed second source of income while combating deforestation and climate change.
>See also: Coronavirus small business diary – Alessandro Savelli, Pasta Evangelists
25th January
We begin to think that the path ahead might be tricky when the bespoke
Hot Business News Today
Why Britain’s SMEs need a proper small business bank
by Greg Taylor • • 0 Comments
Originally written by Greg Taylor on Small Business
The UK banking system is currently failing small businesses.
In theory we do have a solution, the British Business Bank (BBB), but it’s not fit for purpose and isn’t even a real bank – just a platform for connecting lenders to SMEs. As we look to reboot the UK economy, the government needs to take radical action to ensure small businesses aren’t denied funding by a banking system which doesn’t work for them.
At present SMEs looking for funding face a perfect storm. Blanket credit policies from the banks, the fact that some SMEs are overleveraged due to the CBILS borrowing they needed to survive the pandemic, issues with liquidity within many alternative peer-to-peer lenders, and the banks’ current lack of lending appetite, have all combined to make present circumstances very tough for SMEs. They need help urgently and the best solution would be to establish a new government-backed bank to rival the main high street and investment banks and to replace the British Business Bank.
>See also: British Business Bank increases small business support by over a quarter in the past year
The British Business Bank doesn’t perform a banking role but simply helps introduce other
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Small Business named as a top blog in coronavirus journalism awards
by Small Business Team • • 0 Comments
Originally written by Small Business Team on Small Business
Small Business has been named as a top live blog covering the coronavirus pandemic by journalist trade magazine Press Gazette.
The website aimed at owner-directors and microbusinesses was named alongside the BBC, the Guardian, the Telegraph and the Independent as an exemplar.
Press Gazette singled out the Small Business live blog Budget coverage and what the chancellor’s announcements meant for small businesses for praise in its coronavirus coverage awards.
The piece ranked top of Google in searches for “small business Budget” worldwide and to date has had 58,234 page views and been linked to by 30 external websites, underlining its credibility.
The gallery of the best of British coronavirus coverage had over 600 entries.
The expert panel judging entries included Michael Crozier, former associate editor of The Independent; Liz Gerard, former night editor of The Times; and Eleanor Mills, former editorial director of The Sunday Times.
The recognition comes at a time when SmallBusiness.co.uk is achieving record numbers of readers. In March, the site recorded 1.3m page views.
Tim Adler, editor of SmallBusiness.co.uk, said: “The editorial team is thrilled to be recognised by Press Gazette for its breaking news coverage. We’d never attempted a live blog before, and the
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Companies need to evolve to survive
by Adrian Overall • • 0 Comments
Originally written by Adrian Overall on Small Business
We find ourselves in uncertain times. Leading a start-up business, I find this situation particularly uncomfortable, and something I want to reflect on in this narrative. Throughout the time that my team and I have been working outside of the corporate landscape, we have always stood by the mantra that “comfortable = extinct”. Therefore companies need to evolve, and vendors need to innovate. You cannot stay still in business and you must take chances. I don’t know who first coined this term, but I do know that many of you reading this will know what I mean.
We are a self-funded business with our savings and family contingencies invested in the unknown and placed high up on the risk curve. The current crisis only serves to bring that risk into laser focus. That said we know that the position we are in is nothing compared to those key workers that are putting the health of themselves and their families at risk, by turning up every day to support those people that are helpless, to help themselves.
Why companies need to evolve
We have a choice to do the same, but the majority of those on the
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What small business needs from new chancellor Rishi Sunak
by Caroline Plumb • • 0 Comments
Originally written by Caroline Plumb on Small Business
Very little in life surprises these days. Yesterday’s Cabinet reshuffle was a case in point. A few short weeks from the Budget and we have a new chancellor, Rishi Sunak. Really?
Rather than being shocked, instead I wondered more about what this means – in keeping with my company’s core way of thinking, “So what, now what?”.
So, does Sajid Javid’s resignation signal reforms more likely to favour businesses like mine and yours? As the news broke, the pound rose significantly with growing belief in the City a radical spending programme would ensue, less constrained by a chancellor keen to establish his fiscally prudent credentials.
It’s about time small businesses felt protected and valued by a government that has relied heavily on them and the self-employed to ensure years of austerity measures didn’t result in mass unemployment.
There are clearly areas where the Budget next month could move to allay concerns held by restaurateurs, recruiters, retailers and every other real business owner. Fail to do so and I fear the mental health, wellbeing and future financial security of business owners will be at risk.
As someone who started my first business aged 21 in 2000 with no prior
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How I Grew My Blog’s Traffic by 3,711.4% in 6 Months
by Editor • • 0 Comments
Let’s get one thing straight: There are no shortcuts when it comes to growing your blog traffic. That being said, you can see massive progress over a period of a few months with good content and legitimate SEO techniques. For example, I was able to increase my blog traffic by almost 4,000% in just half […]
The post How I Grew My Blog’s Traffic by 3,711.4% in 6 Months appeared first on The Work at Home Woman | Legit Work From Home Jobs.
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The Best Blogging Tools and Resources For Profit Generating Blogs
by Holly Reisem Hanna • • 0 Comments
If you want to work-from-home and make money with your blog — then you need to have the right blogging tools, resources, and information to guide your way. With an overwhelming amount of information on the web, it’s often confusing figuring it all out. Listed below are some of the blogging tools that I use, […]
The post The Best Blogging Tools and Resources For Profit Generating Blogs appeared first on The Work at Home Woman | Legit Work From Home Jobs.
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How to kill ‘hustle-and-grind’ and create a healthy startup culture
by Brigid Charmant • • 0 Comments
Originally written by Brigid Charmant on Small Business
“Looking for a #superstar biz dev person who can hustle their way into a FTSE 250 boardroom.”
“Wanted: dev genius who’s got the grind to keep going when the going gets tough.”
Okay, so these aren’t real job postings on a recruitment site. But were you able to tell the difference? The wording is eerily familiar to anyone in the startup world – the glorification of the grind, the headlining of the hustle. Entrepreneurial culture is obsessed with going hard and not going home. This work ethic might initially seem admirable – but at its core it’s rooted in a toxic approach to the world of work which is taking its toll on staff at all levels of the business.
>See also: Is a four day working week really a boon for productivity and staff wellbeing?
In our own recent research, we spoke to 2,200 business owners across Europe. What we found was alarming – almost one in three said that they or their staff have taken leave for mental health reasons, while almost half said that lack of time was detrimental to their or their employees’ personal health.
What’s ironic is that a significant majority of SMB
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How to Get Companies to Purchase Advertising Space on Your Blog
by Holly - The Work at Home Woman • • 0 Comments
Recently, I ran a survey asking readers what types of topics they wanted more information on and “how to make money with your blog” came up over and over again. It seems like it would be easy enough – place some ads on your site and watch the money roll in, right? Unfortunately, securing advertisers […]
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