Member Article

Cornish Food Company Opens New Box of Delights

An award-winning Cornish food business is delivering the goods to even more customers as it opens a second base in its beloved home region.

The Cornish Food Box Company has a simple concept at its heart; make it as easy as possible for people to buy Cornish food and drink through its online home delivery service, shop, deli and cafe. Customers select from a diverse range; anything from vegetables, meat and fish to sparkling wines, curry sauces and breakfast cereals. The team then pack the order into a box and deliver it to the customers’ door.

The company was created by sisters Tor and Lucy who wanted to create a business in Cornwall that would have a real economic benefit to the rural economy and jobs. After discussing a bread delivery company in Truro, Tor and Lucy then considered delivering additional breakfast items, such as eggs, bacon and sausages, then adding food items for other meals too, until finally the concept of the Cornish Food Box was born.

Started in December 2010 in a tiny shop on the outskirts of Truro city centre, the first week saw them deliver to a single, solitary customer. Fortunately, that same customer proved a very loyal one, still receiving a regular order to this day!

From humble beginnings, the Cornish Food Box Company grew through a combination of sheer hard work, great staff, delighted customers and carefully selected, quality Cornish produce. In September 2013, they relocated to one of Truro’s most beautiful streets, Walsingham Place. The Cornish Food Box Shop and Café quickly followed in the historic building ‘The Stores’, built in the 1800s and bringing with it an interesting history and striking, quirky appearance with wonky floors and spacious cellars.

Over six years, 13 employees and partnerships with more than 200 local farmers, fishermen and food businesses later, the Cornish Food Box Company has a handful of awards under its belt, thousands of happy customers and a website selling over 2,000 products. 98% of the product range remains Cornish, with a small amount of produce sourced from local suppliers that isn’t Cornish to compliment the local produce.

Now the sisters are adding a second base in nearby Redruth. The new premises opened on the 4th of August this year and will act as the distribution and stock hub for the food box delivery, but will also include a small storefront which will allow customers the flexibility of click and collect.

Tor feels that working with Oxford Innovation’s Transform programme has helped the Cornish Food Box Company take this important next step. The Transform programme offers businesses with ambitions for growth access to a network of experienced business coaches. This enables them to tap into expertise and knowledge they might otherwise be unable to access to help them realise their goals. She says:

“Having your own business and being involved in the day to day operations can make it hard to step outside of it and take a good look at what you’re doing. Opening an additional site can feel like a big step and requires some bravery. We found it invaluable to have our coach to discuss every aspect of this move with and help us organise how to use the new site to its maximum efficiencies.

“The new site will fundamentally help us grow our business, and particularly at busy periods like the run up to Christmas. Now we have the space and facilities we need to drive sales without being limited by our environment. It also means we are able to employ more staff and increase our range to include even more corporate and gift hampers which is a growing market for our business.”

Luis Gordon was Tor and Lucy’s Oxford Innovation Business Coach for the Transform programme, working with them from the turn of the year and then acting as their lead coach from March 2017. Luis is a member of Oxford Innovation’s strategy, sales and marketing team. His specialities include business development, improving business performance, improving service levels and identifying and turning around issues within companies. Luis said:

“Lucy and Tor have been great fun to work with, at times a little feisty but sharing the same strong aim, to make their business a success. I gave them guidance but they are the ones who took the tools they were offered and made things happen. If success is 80% attitude and 20% aptitude they’ve got both in bucket-loads. Their attitude and determination will ensure that the Cornish Food Box Company is a success in the future.”

Tor and Lucy’s tenacity and determination has already brought them wider recognition, with the sisters being named in the 2017 top ten of the ‘The Female 50’, Cornwall Live’s recognition of the women who most make a difference in the region. Tor is looking forward to the next steps in the Cornish Food Box Company’s development. She says:

“We’re planning to expand and grow much further, with the aim of considerably improving our online presence and expanding our range of gift hampers. We are looking to work closely with the Cornish Tourism Industry to promote the region as well as the fantastic produce it offers outside of the county. We are also developing our IT system to make it even easier for customers to order their boxes online, and make buying locally an easy part of the weekly food shop. It’s an exciting time.

“Oxford Innovation has really helped us through a difficult stage of our growth and I feel like we’re in a much stronger position now. Luis gave us the faith and confidence that we could do it, allowing us to understand and appreciate that we were doing a good job and we had a fantastic business. He enabled us to look at our business from a different angle, to start working on it, not just in it. I can’t stress enough how valuable their help has been, they’ve been fantastic.”

You can find out more about the Cornish Food Box Company, explore the range of available products and place an order of your own by visiting the website at www.thecornishfoodboxcompany.co.uk. If you’d like to collect your box from the new base you will find it on Cardrew Trade Park North, Cardrew Way in Redruth, post code TR15 1SZ.

If you think your business could benefit from the Transform programme you can find out more by calling Oxford Innovation on 01872 300 116 or visit www.transformcornwall.co.uk.

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