JUICE FOUNDER TAKES FINANCIAL HIT TO PROTECT CUSTOMERS FROM RISING COST OF LIVING

Mobile phone accessory provider Juice has pegged prices for its products to protect customers from the rising cost of living.

As a result, the business took a financial hit and the company’s profitability is the worst it has been for 10 years.

But founder and CEO of Banbury-based Juice, Jolyon Bennett, is sucking up the financial knock-back. He decided not to put up the prices on any Juice products, despite rising inflation, the economic impact of Covid-19, the Russian invasion of Ukraine and post-Brexit trade.

Jolyon said: “We are very grateful to our retailers and ultimately our customers for their support over the years. More than three million customers bought at least one Juice product this year, and we felt that the last thing they needed was to see their shopping bill go up any further.

“By way of support to our customers, we decided not to increase our prices in 2022, but instead take a hit on the fallout from this.”

Last spring, the brand launched its ‘Juice Made Mindfully’ campaign as an extension of its ongoing sustainability initiative.

The campaign is aimed at helping reduce the amount of virgin plastic in the world and to use recycled post-consumer waste collected from oceans, beaches and landfill sites instead.

As a result, Juice became the first mobile phone accessories manufacturer in the UK to remove all single-use plastic from its products.

Last year, the company also shipped £70,000 worth of charging devices to Ukraine to help families remain connected during the ongoing conflict.

Quantum computing spin-out raises £30m and moves to Oxford Technology Park

Oxford Ionics, the record-breaking Oxford University spin-out focused on scalable quantum computing, has moved to Oxford Technology Park.

Oxford Ionics has taken space in Building One while it prepares to occupy larger long-term space on the park.

The company, which holds world records for the performance of its quantum computer technology, recently announced it had raised £30 million in funding from some of the world’s leading tech investors.

Chris Ballance, Co-founder of Oxford Ionics, said: “Quantum computing will revolutionise life sciences, from enabling design of better catalysts through to moving drug discovery from experimentation in test tubes to realtime simulation on computers.

“Oxford Ionics will be actively targeting life science sector customers as a future revenue source.”