Yorkshire young entrepreneur Jonathan Russell’s The Fruit Box office delivery scheme is expanding, having caught the eye of local grant authorities.
Russell’s service delivers specially selected boxes of fruit to workplaces in Leeds city centre.
He graduated from Leeds Metropolitan University in 2008 with a degree in business and marketing to take up a job in sales and marketing in Leeds, where he brought fruit into work for his colleagues from a city-centre supermarket. He was disappointed with how little produce he got for his money, but impressed when he saw the positive effect having fresh fruit in the office had on his colleagues.
In December 2008, he tooks his idea to the Prince's Trust and was awarded a start-up loan and grant in April last year and thenreferred to local enterprise ambassador Sharing the Success, which secured him office facilities in the West Leeds Enterprise Centre.
Russell sources his produce from wholesale market Yorkshire Produce Centre and delivers fruit in branded wooden boxes personally, five days a week, to blue-chip firms such as PricewaterhouseCoopers, Sky and GHD in the city. In a typical week he delivers 350kg of fruit.
He said: “The service has been really popular and my clients get really excited when they know I’m coming in to their office and most start tucking into the fruit before I’ve even had a chance to leave.”
Russell is now looking for his own premises and to hire at least three staff over the next six months as he hopes to expand into neighbouring towns and cities in West Yorkshire, as well as to launch an organic option.
