First-time mums set up business selling fruit lollies – and it now makes £1.28MILLION a year
Lucy Woodhouse and Meriel Kehoe from London set up Claudi & Fin's frozen yogurt and fruit ice lollies after meeting at a mother and baby group
MATERNITY leave is supposed to be a time when you concentrate on your newborn baby and recovering from the birth.
But these two London-based mums ended up using the time to hatch a frozen yogurt and fruit lollipop business that six years later would have an annual turnover of £1.28MILLION.
Lucy Woodhouse and Meriel Kehoe, both 43, met at a mother-and-baby group round the corner from where they both lived in London.
Back in 2012, Lucy's daughter Claudia and Meriel's son Fin were both a few months old when their mums hit it off.
Six years on, and the women are business partners - and they've sold more than six million Claudi & Fin lollies - named after the children who brought them together.
When the Sun Online caught up with them, it's clear that they get on like a house on fire.
Shortly after they got the ball rolling on their idea, they decided to enter a competition at Sainsbury's. They'd not yet sold a single lolly but they thought they'd give it a go.
"We got down to the final 10," said Lucy. "It was very Dragon's Den, but at the time we didn't really have a plan.
"When we were shortlisted we panicked. And then we got an order from Sainsbury's for 16,000 and we had six months to turn it around. We had to Google a lot."
Their next challenge was to find a food manufacturer who would take their kitchen recipe and make it on a much larger scale.
"Weirdly this was really difficult. We were basically two housewives with their recipes approaching big companies and the food manufacturers didn't want to take that risk," said Lucy.
The pair had planned to take time to sell their products at markets on the weekend and grow slowly but thanks to the supermarket deal, it didn't really happen like that.
At first Meriel went back to work as a freelance TV producer and director, but after a year and a half, it became clear that the lolly business was taking up more of her time. So she quit.
Since landing the deal, Lucy and Meriel both spent £14,000 each and invested another £7,000 each thanks to a business loan.
Next year, they reckon their sales will make a turnover of £2MILLION.
Even though they kicked off their ideas during their maternity leave, they wouldn't recommend it.
Meriel said: "Everyone's different and it happened when we were on maternity leave but you shouldn't plan to do anything then. That's not what it's for and that time is important for you.
"The last thing I would ever want is to make people feel like they're wasting their time."
Six years down the line, their lollies are stocked in major retailers like Waitrose and Saisbury's, they've got their own office and a team of people - and Claudia's now got a little brother, Henry who's 17-months-old.
They've got some more products in the pipeline but you they won't spill the beans just yet.
And what's it like setting up your business with your best pal?
"Nothing beats working with a friend," said Lucy. "We’ve shared tears of laughter and tears of frustration and nothing beats the security of knowing you’ll have each other’s backs no matter what life throws our way."
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