1.1 Business Enterprise & Entrepreneurship Practice Questions

Crumbridge Bakehouse

Tamsin Achebe left her job as a bank cashier in 2022 to set up Crumbridge Bakehouse, a sole trader business. She used £7 000 of her savings and borrowed £3 000 from her parents to buy ovens and rent a small kitchen.

Tamsin noticed that people on their way to work wanted something filling to eat on the move. She invented a range of savoury breakfast muffins, including cheese and spinach and spiced bean, which no other bakery in the town sells.

Her first two applications for a stall at the town's Saturday market were turned down. She applied a third time and was given a stall, which now sells out most weeks. Tamsin also took samples to the manager of a local café chain and asked him to stock her muffins. Crumbridge Bakehouse now supplies nine cafés, and sales in 2024 were twice those of 2023.

Text 1 — Crookroot Veg

Crookroot Veg delivers boxes of vegetables to homes in and around the town of Gosterton. The business was started in 2021 by Nadia Okonjo. While working as a delivery driver, Nadia saw local farms throwing away vegetables that supermarkets had rejected for being the wrong shape or size.

Nadia left her job and used £7 000 of her own savings to buy a second-hand van. She contacted 40 farms before three of them agreed to supply her. She designed a box of mixed vegetables that is sold at 40% below supermarket prices and includes a recipe card for the produce inside it. Customers choose the evening their box is delivered to their door.

Crookroot Veg made a loss in its first year, but Nadia continued, doing all of the deliveries herself. The business now delivers to Gosterton and two nearby towns.

Table 1 Average number of boxes delivered each week by Crookroot Veg

Year	Boxes delivered each week
2022	60
2023	185
2024	420

Text 2 — Loopwear

Lowri Penhale set up Loopwear in 2019. Loopwear makes sports kit from recycled plastic bottles. Lowri had worked as a sports coach for nine years and often heard players complain that cheap kit wore out after one season. She believed she could make a better, harder-wearing kit. Over two years she tested 30 different recycled fabrics before she was happy with one.

To start the business, Lowri gave up her full-time coaching job, used £18 000 of her own savings and took out a £10 000 bank loan. She rents a small unit on an industrial estate and employs two part-time machinists. Loopwear has no long-term contracts; most orders come from small local teams. Lowri reinvests most of the profit into new sewing machines.

Year	Revenue (£)	Net profit (£)
2020	32 000	2 500
2021	58 000	9 000
2022	91 000	16 400

Paddle Pod

Paddle Pod hires out paddleboards and gives lessons on Hollowmere Lake in Cumbria. It was started three years ago by Ryan Doherty, aged 31, who gave up a permanent job as a secondary school PE teacher. Ryan used £9 000 of his own savings to buy 20 boards, wetsuits and a lockable storage container beside the lake.

Paddle Pod charges £15 an hour to hire a board and £28 for a one-hour beginners' lesson taught by Ryan himself. Most customers are families on holiday and about 80% of bookings are taken between May and September. Bookings are cancelled when the weather is poor, and in winter the business earns very little; last January Paddle Pod made a loss of £1 400.

Ryan now employs two part-time summer instructors. He enjoys deciding which days he opens and no longer has a manager telling him what to do. The business is now his only source of income.

Ryan has two options for next winter:

• Option 1: go back to teaching part-time, three days a week, from October to April, and open Paddle Pod only at weekends
• Option 2: keep Paddle Pod open every day through the winter, as now.

Cranklow Cycle Repairs

Cranklow Cycle Repairs is a mobile bicycle repair business in Norwich. Marcus Ellery, aged 28, set it up in 2021 after leaving his job as a warehouse supervisor, where he earned £26 000 a year. He spent £9 000 of his savings, plus a £4 000 loan from his family, on a van, tools and spare parts.

Marcus drives to the customer's home or workplace and repairs the bicycle there. Most repairs are completed within 24 hours of a telephone call. A basic service costs £45. The two bicycle shops in the city centre charge £35 for the same service, but customers must take the bicycle to the shop themselves and can wait up to a week to get it back.

Marcus also sells a monthly 'Ride Ready' subscription for £12, aimed at people who cycle to work every day. Subscribers get a free safety check each month and move to the front of the queue for repairs. Around 70 customers have signed up.

A national bicycle chain has recently opened a large store on the edge of Norwich. Marcus works alone and can complete up to six repairs a day.

Nix & Nettle

Nix & Nettle is a sole trader business in Carlisle that makes alcohol-free botanical drinks. Dana Whitfield, aged 34, started the business in her kitchen after leaving a permanent job as a laboratory technician. She invested £12 000 of her savings in a small bottling machine and rents a unit on an industrial estate for £650 a month.

Nix & Nettle sells one product, Nettle & Elderflower, in glass bottles priced at £4.50 each. The drink is stocked by 38 independent delicatessens and farm shops across Cumbria. Dana mixes every batch herself and employs one part-time worker.

At food festivals, customers often ask Dana for a drink they can carry around with them. Several large drinks companies have recently launched alcohol-free products in cans.

Dana wants to grow the business and is considering two options:

• Option 1: develop an original range of three new flavours, using ingredients no other drinks business uses
• Option 2: adapt the existing Nettle & Elderflower drink by also selling it in cans, which would need new canning equipment.