Wandsworth Foodies
In June 2016 Wandsworth Foodies was born. A brand created to roll out a programme of business support for food businesses across Wandsworth borough.
The campaign proved to be a staggering success engaging 1,942 small businesses through expert led workshops, business growth accelerator clinics, one to one strategic business sessions, trial trading & networking.
Testimonial
“Helen has played an influential part of growing my business and was always available on the phone or email. She has presented my company with great opportunities for exposure, on a much bigger scale, as well as generating great contacts and additional customers though my door.”
Jayke Mangion, Owner/Partner of www.wcclapham.co.uk, Brickwood Coffee & Bread, www.Joepublicpizza.com and www.Powderkegdiplomacy.co.uk
Our Mission
Wandsworth is in direct competition with neighbouring boroughs; Richmond, Merton, Lambeth, Kingston Upon Thames and easily accessible to central London.
The more we could encourage people to eat and drink and work in the borough the better it was for the local economy. For the cafes, bars and restaurants, for local residents it boosted employment options in this area, and brought more people in to spend money locally.
The growth of food businesses in Wandsworth would help boost revenue, increase employment, create more economies of scale working across the community. A free specialist business support programme would allow businesses to gain access and learn the foodie business skills and gain access to the tools they needed to ensure their longevity while safeguarding local employee positions.
Our Vision
- To create a robust and specialised food business support programme for pre-starts, start-ups and SME’s.
- Build a brand to engage in the community.
- Promote the brand promoting the support on offer advertising it across the borough.
- Develop a marketing strategy to promote the brand on and offline.
- To build a foodie community and to focus on the importance of a local economy; a key part was encouraging more people to eat and drink in the borough and to encourage small businesses to work together.
- To connect people in to a community enabling them to collaborate and support each other on their journey. It was important to support the business community and put Wandsworth on the map as a food destination of choice in SW London.
- To identify and work with key experts to roll out key subject matter expert workshops.
- Built partnerships with local large businesses, 3rd level colleges, Universities, local authority Town Centre Managers, New Covent Garden market, Chamber of Commerce and all key stakeholders.
Our Solution
We worked with Wandsworth Council to develop a programme of extensive business support that met the needs of growing food businesses in the borough. This included free one to one support and workshop events. Create an on and off-line brand for the campaign and advertising Wandsworth Council extensively across all advertising avenues. Created a logo, brand and website listing all events and advertising the free support available to businesses’ and residents of Wandsworth. We identified and work with the key subject matter experts and key stakeholders across the borough and beyond to bring the 15 most up to date events that focused on the key business challenges in the food sector. We conducted over 900 hours of one to one support where we worked with businesses to solve their critical challenges. We provided the necessary support allowing existing businesses to scale up successfully.
1,942 businesses engaged in the programme
We assisted in excess of 35 new food businesses start up
166 businesses requested one to one sessions receiving 1- 4 sessions of up to 8 hours each. We did over 960 hours of one to one consultancy sessions
We ran over 15 Master class events solving the chore challenges of food businesses
We over achieved all the requested KPI’s
We have built a thriving and active foodie community in Wandsworth
With our partners we arranged and engaged over 50 businesses in more than 10 trial trading
At CPG we’re proud of the genuine impact we have on the businesses we help. You can read about some of those success stories below.
Do you want a similar outcome? Contact us today.
Coffee & Cake Co.
Implementing a clear sales & marketing strategy
Stana ran a café and turnover had dropped significantly. Working with CPG the newly branded Coffee & Cake Co café moved from a loss making position to making record profits in just 5 months.
Wandsworth DigiTech
Uniting a Digital Community in Wandsworth
CPG has worked in partnership with Wandsworth Council and has enabled local businesses to access appropriate support provided by other public funded programmes or commercial providers.
Let’s Build a Legacy Together!
Our bespoke business support programmes are a brilliant way for you to support local businesses in your borough or showcase corporate social responsibility in action, give something back and keep enterprise alive in your community.
We have a successful track record running business support programmes across a wide variety of industries. Get in touch to find out more.