YBW pop-up smoothie bars..the results
During York Business Week we simultaneously set up 2 pop-up smoothie bars at schools in the city. It’s part of our joint mission to involve more young people in Business Week.
Prior to YBW we trained the two young teams how to make smoothies, manage finances and create the right marketing message and strategy. Then it was up to them.
The sixth formers at Archbishop achieved impressive revenues of £936 for the week – that’s 936 smoothies sold in 6 hours of trading. Their best day was £212.
The year 10 pupils at Huntington High managed an impressive £642. Their best day was almost £200 on the Friday.
Our highlight was during the training day Huntington High when the year 10s asked if they could continue to work on the bar launch over their lunch. It surprised all of us.
The aim of the bars is to create business situations where students have to work together to solve real problems. On the first day at Archbishop, the students didn’t realise how busy it was going to be. They couldn’t make the smoothies fast enough to serve everyone in 15 minutes. The next day they had rows of smoothies ready to buy. They made lots more sales. Lesson learnt.
Martin Charlton, Head of Business at Archbishop Holgate’s School, said, “I was always confident they’d break even and make a bit of profit, but i didn’t think they’d achieve £200 of sales a day. Every day. They’re made £650 profit.”
“The theory we’ve taught them in class over two years covers 12 different units and they’ve been able to put bits of each of those units into practice during the week. The biggest thing is learning to overcome problems when you don’t have much time to think about it. It’s been really great to see them taking ownership of it and do the work themselves rather always asking for help. I’d definitely do it again”
Year 12 smoothie bar operator, Beaurish Tigere, thought they’ve “learnt a lot about team work. Because sometimes it’s been stressful. And we’re not the kind of group that normally work together. But we’ve achieved a lot and bonded well.”
Matt Durkin, said “Some of our friends didn’t think we’d make any money whatsoever. But we’ve made £650 profit. That’s £93 wage each..It’s ok having a qualification, but this shows that you can put your knowledge into practice.”
Over at Huntington,
Nicky Wilson, Head of Business, said, “The experience has been fantastic for all students involved. They’ve taken part in the whole process from the beginning by choosing their flavours, designing their marketing, deciding on a pricing strategy and then actually making and serving the product. The fact that they made over £600 is amazing especially as they were up against charity week taking place across the school. I am very proud to have been part of this and would love to do it again in the future.”
The Huntington students reported, “We thoroughly enjoyed working on the smoothie bar because it was a great success and has boosted our confidence in working with other people and has vastly improved our business skills and understanding of how a business works. Also we hope to do something similar in the future.
Increasing the involvement of young people in York Business Week has been one of the main targets of the event over the last couple of years. After the disappointment of a small student turnout in 2010, last year, young entrepreneurs from the city visited every local secondary school to deliver a talk. This year was even better.
When we first set out to open student run smoothie bars in schools, we were told that a food business would be too much risk and responsibility for young people. What we’ve always believed, and has been proven during Business Week, is that the freedom to fail, is the incentive to succeed.
A special thanks must go to the YBW team and Learning City York for making it all possible. I can’t wait for next year.
Simon Long
The teams in full.
Archbishop Holgate
Matt Durkin
Harry Middleton
Tom Baldwin
Jacob Wray-Kerr
Beaurish Tigere
Sam Maycock
Seyma Kilic
Huntington High School
Amelia Dale
Harriet Johnson
Evie Elcock
Holly Blackburn
Zoe Baulch
Daniel Bonser
Lucy Acomb
Stephanie Nelson
Rebecca Coughlin
Charlotte Wilkinson