Northern fruit and veg grower Hexhamshire Organics plans to diversify its product portfolio thanks to support from a free business clinic run by Northumbria University.
The clinic, run by students of the university’s business school, is available to all SME businesses, as well as multinationals, charities and third sector organisations. Students are asked to analyse a problem, consider solutions and provide a detailed report of their recommendations.
Hexhamshire Organics’ Bob Paton said: “We spent a number of years setting up Hexhamshire Organics and, although we had been successful before, once I retired after 38 years in the technology industry and joined the business full-time, we really had to make this work for us as our main source of income.”
One of the main issues identified was the lack of Hexhamshire Organic’s presence on Facebook. “We have the website and other social media channels but research showed that Facebook pages were important to our target market, and we’re working on ours now,” said Paton.
“The business clinic service was a great opportunity to get consultancy input from a local university with a great reputation which could help us with our plans for growth.
“I was really surprised by the standard of work completed and particularly by the final document we received. It was very thorough with excellent, well-researched recommendations. I honestly didn’t expect to receive something so professional.”
The university recently invested over £800,000 to move the business clinic into its own dedicated site, complete with client briefing rooms, a boardroom and a reception area with conferencing and event space.
Since the scheme started four years ago, the total value of the students’ pro bono consultancy advice and reports has been estimated by 145 client organisations to exceed £700,000.
