Mark tasting sweet smell of success from his Nuneaton base

"Fudge-taster required: Apply within."

It's the sort of vacancy that might spark a bit of a stampede.

So Mark Johnson, owner of Oooh! FUDGE, based at the Centenary Business Centre in Nuneaton, had better be ready when he recruits an apprentice in the summer. The position comes with considerable perks!

In truth, of course, there will be much more to the apprenticeship than chomping fudge. It will be a case of learning the skills and techniques which have helped Mark, a trained confectioner, establish his business as a small but serious player in the highly competitive confectionery market.

Oooh! FUDGE has operated from the Warwickshire County Council-run Centenary Business Centre for three years since Mark took the "leap of faith" of starting his own firm after 20 years working in the leisure industry.

It has provided the perfect base for a business which has targeted a niche market with sufficient success to have already warranted expansion to bigger premises within the centre.

Oooh! FUDGE is a business which began, like all successful ones do, with a good idea. Then came that leap of faith, the catalyst for which was - and this can't be said of too many businesses - Weston-Super-Mare pier.

"After the pier burned down I was part of the operations team working on its restoration," said Mark. "We had to restock everything including the confectionery and wherever I looked I just could not source any premium fudge.

"I stored that thought - and the more I thought about it the more I felt there was a niche market there; for fudge that, instead of being just brown, looks like what it tastes of. So Eton Mess fudge looks like Eton Mess and Tutti Frutti looks like Tutti Frutti etc."

That idea, powered by a lot of hard graft, has taken off, generating a customer-list which now spans the country.

"It was very hard going, particularly at first," said Mark. "I made plenty of mistakes - but that's how you learn.

"I have been in the leisure industries all my working life so know the market and, touch wood, it is going well. I supply a lot of sweet-shops and delis and one shop has asked me to devise an own-brand product for them which will be very interesting.  

"It has helped me a lot to be based at the Centenary Business Centre. We are really close to the transport network here and the centre has everything you want as a small business.  Also, the camaraderie and support from other traders here is great."

There was one thing that Mark did have to learn the hard way though. About that product-tasting...

"In the first three months of the business I put on about two stone," he recalls. "I am a bit more restrained now...but you have got to taste the product you are sending out to customers!"