Bob's sweet charity choc full of success
After seven years in the confectionery business Bob Strong has learned that while call centre staff want chocolate, lorry drivers prefer hard boiled sweets.
After seven years in the confectionery business Bob Strong has learned that while call centre staff want chocolate, lorry drivers prefer hard boiled sweets.
"Hairdressers are partial to chewy sweets and in call-centres, which are usually female dominated, chocolates go down well," says Bob, aged 51.
"However drivers of haulage companies prefer toffees and hard boiled sweets because they usually last longer."
Bob started his Charity Sweets business in August 2001 and since then has raised more than £300,000 for charities including Mencap, Save the Children, Guide Dogs for the Blind and Breast Cancer Campaign.
"I used to work for Virgin Media as a sales and marketing director and was on a nice salary," says Bob from his warehouse in Empire Close, Aldridge.
"However, I wanted to do things my way and so I took a gamble and even though I don't earn what I used to, I get a lot more satisfaction from my job.
"While working for Virgin I noticed when people had the munchies in the afternoon they would leave the office and ask colleagues if they wanted anything from the shop.
"At the time we were doing some work for Mencap and I spoke to the chief executive about my idea of having charity sweets in offices and businesses. He said he would be interested in being our main charity."
Charity Sweets sell dozens of different types of sweets such as spearmint chews, dolly mixtures, milk chocolate eclairs, cola bottles, strawberry creams, wine gums, fruit bon bons and chocolate peanuts.
The warehouse is filled from floor to ceiling with boxes of sweets in their yellow and blue packets waiting to be distributed to thousands of work places.
"In our first year we had 300 businesses taking boxes of Charity Sweets and we sold 90,000 bags," says Bob.
"Seven years later and we have boxes in 10,000 businesses and sell one million bags a year. We mainly buy sweets from UK manufacturers as even though they are more expensive, it is best that it comes from a reputable source."
Sweet Causes has 12 sales collectors who, every three weeks, travel around hundreds of businesses topping up the number of bags of sweets. Bob has joint ownership of a machine in Great Barr which bags up the sweets.
"There are 20 packets in each box and we normally have six chocolate products, four jelly sweets and the rest are toffees, chews and hard boiled sweets," says Bob.
"We are still charging £1 a bag while a lot of our competitors have put theirs up to £1.20.
"Instead we have just reduced the amount of sweets in each bag. The weight is between 125g and 150g, but they all used to 150g. From the £1 we receive, 15p is taken off in VAT, the sweets cost 38p a bag and 17p is taken in distribution, wages and fuel costs.
"This leaves us with 30p and half of that is given to charity."
Sweet Causes employs 18 people and they pack 3,000 packets of sweets a day.
"My wife Susan is company secretary and one of my sons Craig, aged 29, is company marketing manager," says Bob, who lives in Four Oaks, near Sutton Coldfield. "I have another son called Stuart, aged 27, who is doing well as manager of a music venue in London. Even though this is for charity it is also a business venture and if you don't make money for yourself it doesn't matter how good your intentions are, you have to make a living and so it wouldn't last for long. I invested £67,000 of my own money in the business when it first started and by 2012 I hope to recoup that.
"At the moment we take sweets to within a 70 mile radius of Aldridge but we do want to expand to London, the South East and North West.
Bob says even though the credit crunch has not had an affect on his sales he has seen other businesses struggling. "People enjoy the comfort of eating sweets, so we are not seeing a difference in sales," he adds.
"At the end of the day people make a choice - they can purchase a bag of sweets from a high street store and all of the profit goes to that shop. But, if they buy Charity Sweets they know half of the profit goes to a good cause - which must help to take away some of the guilt of having a sweet tooth."
