I’m pretty obsessed about the weather – mainly because soft drinks are hugely weather dependent!  Long hot sunny days and everyone is likely to be out and about drinking cold drinks,  cold rainy days are likely to find everyone tucked up indoors cradling a mug of tea.  I don’t like to be a weather bore [...]

  We’ve got some new additions to our range at Breckland Orchard – namely our three new cordials……..aka Posh Squash.  We’re just incredibly proud of them! They come in 330ml bottles,  are very highly concentrated [you need to add 8 parts water to 1 part cordial] and even if I say so myself they are [...]

Last weekend Breckland Orchard went ‘triple’ in terms of food shows.  Through much jiggling, organising and calling in the help of my mum [aka Ma Breckland] and her friend Netty, we managed to be at three different shows last Saturday! Hadleigh Show Letchworth Food Festival Greene King Food Festival The weather wasn’t kind last weekend [...]

The very bestest thing about being an entrepreneur?  Having no two days the same………and today certainly was one of those!  I went to Parliament with 50 other business owners from Norfolk – all with a BuyLocal agenda.  We were there to meet a selection of the Norfolk MP’s, to speak to them and to get [...]

I’ve been asked to do a speech at the end of the month.  Before I started Breckland Orchard I’d not done much public speaking at all……..but have done quite a few since I started up.  It’s part of the territory of being an entrepreneur – people are interested in how you started out and what [...]

We’ve been at Olympia this week at Caffe Culture – a trade show aimed at the cafe bar market.  It takes place in one of the side halls in Olympia, so its large enough to have a real variety of exhibitors, but to also have  a cosy atmophere at the same time. It was a [...]

Like all small business owners I wear multiple ‘hats’ and juggle multiple roles.  Sometimes I’m in selling mode [promoting my soft drinks], others I’m in ‘buying’ mode [buying products and services from other companies].  As a product based business I buy plenty of items – bottles, labels, ingredients, design, printing, accountancy services etc etc…….the list [...]

Wish us luck, the craziest week imaginable has just begun! We are exhibiting at Caffe Culture in Olympia this week – Wednesday 16th and Thursday 17th.  Today I am getting everything ready for that……..making sure all the passes are printed, press packs, leaflets, distributor information, samples, stand etc etc!  Getting to Olympia and realising you [...]

I can’t remember how many new product launches I was involved with at Mars [probably about a hundred]. Some of the more memorable launches I helped take to market at the large supermarkets were: Whiskas Pouch Catfood, Uncle Bens Pouch [readycook] Rice and Galaxy Bitesize.  All the product launches were so well thought through, so [...]

I love blogging [which of course reading this you'll already know!]…….but I live in a very visual world and get to go to some amazing places.  I’d love to share more of those experiences via some video blogs.  I have a great video on my website shot by Alex and Ryan from Lambda films………and I’m [...]

There’s lots of chatter about Social Media, lots of scare stories in the press, but what detractors don’t realise is how fabulous it is for small business use.  I just adore it, and can’t imagine being able to run Breckland Orchard without it. Shona Chambers and I started chatting on Twitter just over a year [...]