Food Box Discovery steps up its game

Business and life partners, Sarah Jolley and Martin Jarvis came up with the idea for a gourmet food business after their initial success with retailing cakes online.

Food Discovery Box simply evolved from selling cakes to more artisan and rarer products. The business partners scour the UK to bring members ultimate food finds. The products are stringently selected for taste and guaranteed to be made in small batches by independent producers. 

But it was down to a boost from receiving a Micro Enterprise Grant, part of the Warwickshire Rural Growth Network funding programme which enabled the business to really grow.  Martin Jarvis works full-time on the business and Sarah fits it around her busy full-time job. They started their first business after extensive travelling across the UK, visiting farmer’s markets, independent producers and food fayres.  Food Discovery Box was awarded with a grant of £8,500 and 40% of this was used to develop a more user-friendly website.

The grant has made a huge difference to the business, because Food Box Discovery is now able to develop its online shop. This enables the SME to streamline the website so that customers can easily access its shop front.  Due to added features, members are now able to choose which products they would like to try from a different short list every month. Previously members could not select chosen products historically but with new ‘Add-ons’ this will no longer be a problem. 

Sarah Jolley said: “This will really make a huge difference to our productivity and will increase sales due to having a consistent audience who have tried the products previously. We have done our research and no other subscription organisation enables its members to pick specific items each month. The unique selling point will be the online shop front on a website.

“Importantly, the website’s back door for our business will be the warehouse and we will be able to extract information from the website and manage stock levels. The new website will also be less restrictive to the number of members it has and enable the company the opportunity to grow the business.”

Food Discovery Box is based at the Innovation Centre at Stoneleigh Park and the information about the grants were available to all its tenants. Jolley concludes: “Stoneleigh Park is a real hub of rural enterprise and having received a Micro Enterprise Grant, it will now enable us to recruit further staff in the near future, and take our business to the next level.”