entrepreneurs 29
Pictures by Angus Thomas
the kitchen – it goes beyond zero waste. They were already doing food waste collections, but the food waste had to travel quite a distance, and they wanted to do something on-site to show continuous improvement on the ISO14001 standard they had just achieved. The sites are all so different: at Softcat, the office workers go through so many teabags, and they use kompost wormeries – they convert 78,000 teabags annually into one tonne of compost. The staff really buy into it, it’s recycling that happens right in front of their eyes, it’s like magic.
Is there a dream client you would love to get on board?
A Michelin-starred chef. If they could become our champion, it would just be fantastic. Raymond Blanc is the president of the Sustainable Restaurant Association, of which we are a supplying member, so he would be the ultimate one to get on board.
What are your ambitions for the business?
It’s taken three and a half years to get to this point but I feel we are now on the cusp, I can really put kompost out in the market and say we’ve had our trials and tribulations, but we’ve learned our lessons and we know what we’re doing. It’s an exciting time – we have 12 sites, and people are coming to us to provide food waste solutions. My ultimate dream is to turn kompost into a franchise, where licensees across the country can do it as well. I want to get us out there but also enable other like-minded people to set up their own microbusinesses. What we really need is for an investor to come along, and to take kompost to the next level. At the moment, it is a business with huge potential but it needs that injection and experience. We will need bigger premises, where we can distribute the komposter units and give training to our licensees. I went through a tough time with the redundancy, and there are other people who are facing that, and then there’s the problem with food waste – so if these two things can come together and we can actually roll this out across the country with other people having their own microbusinesses, then why not?
Do you see yourself more as an entrepreneur or eco-warrior?
Definitely an entrepreneur. It’s interesting, I was known as the 'compost girl' at Rank, and when people meet me they think I will be this activist, tying myself to the railway to stop the HS2 from coming – of course I care for the environment, but I’m too pragmatic as a business person to believe that that’s the way that things will work. We need to find a good balance between the two, and that’s what I’m hoping to achieve with this – it’s not to focus just on the environment or just on the business, it’s all about a sustainable balance. I’m a third generation entrepreneur and it’s very important to me to be continuing that tradition, it’s genetic, I do believe that. But I don’t
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – MAY 2013
see myself as a serial entrepreneur – I’m putting all my energy and emotions into this one thing.
You say that you are a “future philanthropist” – tell me more. And if you had a £10 million windfall, would you invest it in the company or give it away?
I once met someone and on her business card her title was “philanthropist” – it made such an impression on me. I’ve always been the kind of person who would bring home all the lame dogs and the ducks with broken wings, but to really put it into effect you do need a bit of money behind you. If I won the lottery, I’d go half and half – again, it’s that sustainable balance. I hope I will be able to make a difference, probably back in Africa, for animals and children, and I’d like to see kompost come to full fruition so I’d invest a big chunk and make sure that kompost goes where it needs to go. If it doesn’t work out, it will be sad, but I’ll start over again: that is another thing that makes you an entrepreneur, the fact that failure doesn’t scare you, you just say “I’ve tried this” and then try again. I’ve lost so much in my life already that this will not faze me. In 1997, my mum and my aunt each lost two children, I lost my two brothers and cousins. Life punches you around and then it’s a choice whether you are going to get up or not – we’ve chosen as a family to get back up.
What would you consider your greatest achievement?
Going through an experience, like redundancy, and looking the world in the eye again, and when the opportunity presented itself, quite by accident, grabbing it and shaking it and saying we’re going to do this – that’s what I feel proudest about, I didn’t go and lie down, I managed to turn it into something that I’m proud of, and something that’s got the full 100% – it makes me happy, my partner happy, our clients happy, and the environment happy at the end of the day, it’s really a full circle.
Details:
www.kompost.co.uk www.businessmag.co.uk
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68