News: Announcing Old Mill’s Food and Drink Business Advisory Programme
Announcing Old Mill’s Food and Drink Business Advisory Programme While the West Country has a vibrant food and drink sector with some stunning success stories, it’s a well-known fact that small business failure rates can be depressingly high – especially in those critical first five years.
Research shows that many embryonic businesses fail to get traction because they struggle to compete in three key areas: funding, cashflow and distribution.
managed business to realise its ambitions by taking that risk and growing a sustainable, profitable enterprise that can be genuinely life changing.
With Brexit and the political situation continuing to add further uncertainty, it’s not getting any easier for businesses to gain a foothold. This has prompted us to consider what more we can do to try to assist businesses facing these challenges.
We are committed to the food and drink sector across the South West, and we wanted to be able to put something back into the industry in a demonstrable way, that could help small businesses at different stages along the business life cycle.
When you look at the typical life cycle of a business, the start-up phase can be particularly tricky, as businesses at this point are focused on generating momentum but are often short of cash and typically cannot afford to pay for advice at the point where, arguably, they most need it.
So how could we best achieve this?
We’re not talking here about preparing a set of year-end accounts; it’s more about what we at Old Mill would describe as ‘business advisory’, i.e. the kind of practical insights that make a real difference. We genuinely want to see our clients succeed – there’s nothing more satisfying than helping an owner-
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The challenge is that businesses have different needs at various stages of their growth trajectory. For startups it’s all about getting traction, while a more mature business may have plateaued but is ambitious to break through to the next level. Other businesses may be looking at expansion, and then there’s the tipping point when a business owner needs to start thinking about their exit. It soon became clear to us that a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach wouldn’t work and, during exploratory
discussions with our key partners across the region’s food and drink industry, what emerged was the opportunity to develop an exciting new programme that we believe will resonate with business leaders at all of the different stages of their journey. We are delighted to announce that, as part of our lead sponsorship with Taste of the West, we will offer a free financial mentoring support package to members – the Old Mill Food and Drink Business Advisory Programme. This programme is aligned to food and drink businesses across the entire supply chain, and is designed to tackle the issues that affect you along your journey in a way that will make a real difference. The programme will consist of different types of events, depending on your specific needs. But, just to be absolutely clear, these sessions are not thinly veiled ‘sales pitches’ that will leave attendees feeling disappointed – our promise is to deliver actionable content and access to our expert team who are passionate about the food and drink industry.
