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Business rolls in for Barnsley entrepreneur's startup packaging consultancy

Barnsley entrepreneur Sarah Greenwood has has set up her own packaging consultancy with help from a regional startup programme.

Sarah, who studied physics and then polymer science at the University of Sheffield, set up Greenwood Packaging Consultancy after help from the SmartStart scheme managed by the Barnsley Business and Innovation Centre (BBIC), at Wilthorpe, working in partnership with Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council.

Greenwood Packaging Consultancy is one of a dozen companies that graduated from SmartStart to the Genesis programme, which gives Sarah free shared office space at the BBIC, as well as access to a dedicated business coach for up to12 months.

The firm has already gained contracts to develop packaging for a high street supermarket, a start-up cosmetics company employing Sarah to design packaging to send luxury cosmetics through the post, and a bakery in north Wales asking Sarah to design wrappers for bread and rolls to supply a major supermarket.

Sarah said: “I know it sounds a bit geeky, but I loved tins when I was a teenager. My fascination started with my dad’s old fashioned Oxo tin.

“I loved the branding. And pretty soon I had a collection of tins of all sizes and I used to make boxes out of paper,” said

“I wasn’t sure what to do,” admits Sarah. “But then I attended the business start-up programme called SmartStart and that really got me thinking.”

The SmartStart programme has helped more than 200 businesses set up over the last two years with free business advice and workshops.

BBIC business development manager James Herbert said: “Helping Barnsley entrepreneurs set up successful businesses within the borough is the whole point of the SmartStart and Genesis programmes. So it is brilliant to see that Sarah is doing so well and has a lot of potential for the future.”

The SmartStart and Genesis programmes are part of a wider strategy to help grow the local economy, as set out in Barnsley Council’s Jobs and Business Plan 2014-2017.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Clare Burnett .