• Contact
  • About
DONATE
NEWSLETTER SIGN UP
  • Login
Central Bylines
  • Home
  • News
    • All
    • Brexit
    • Education
    • Environment
    • Health
    • Transport
    • World
    ME left Merryn Crofts bed-bound and she died shortly after her 21st birthday - Image by meassociation.org.uk

    Please don’t leave ME behind… again

    Can we trust charities with our money

    Can we trust charities with our money?

    Adobe Stock - By creativeneko

    The Lost Opportunities List

    breast cancer cells

    This writer’s life: a diary. Part 4: Cancer and me

    Diabetes test

    Lifesaving diabetes project recognised with Midlands community innovation award

    water pollution

    The worst we have seen for years: the Environment Agency’s damning verdict on the water companies

    Red weather warning

    Red weather warning? Heat wave hits central England

    Pro-EU campaign group, Stratford4Europe, relaunches its campaign!

    Pro-EU campaign group, Stratford4Europe, relaunches its campaign!

    Mallard Pass Solar Farm

    Will the Mallard Pass Solar Farm benefit the local community?

    Trending Tags

    • Johnson
    • Ukraine Conflict
    • Brexit
    • Education
    • Environment
    • Health
    • Transport
    • World
  • Politics
    Khalid Mahmood

    Birmingham Labour MP unfairly dismissed aide

    Adobe Stock - By creativeneko

    The Lost Opportunities List

    Tractor ploughing a field

    The loss of freedom of movement has detonated the UK’s demographic time bomb

    Nadhim Zahawi

    When I worked for Nadhim Zahawi

    boris-johnson

    Boris Johnson wasn’t unfortunate, he was incompetent – and here’s why

    Pipelines

    The looming energy emergency

    Photo by Daniel Reche 
 pexels.com

    Run with Refugees: showing solidarity with refugees ahead of Commonwealth Games in Birmingham

    Right or wrong

    The involvement of Midlands MPs in the mass resignation events last week

    Image by Stan

    Grade A trolling by Hugh Grant on Andrea Jenkyns for middle finger gesture outside Downing St

    Trending Tags

    • Levelling up
  • Opinion
    Adobe stock licensed image by Jorm S

    Freedom and conservatism

    This work is from the National Child Labor Committee collection at the Library of Congress. According to the library, there are no known copyright restrictions on the use of this work.

    Reflections on Boris Johnson’s ‘high skill, high wage future’ speech. Fashion – Fix up, look smart! 

    Adobe Stock licensed image by motortion

    Reflections on Boris Johnson’s ‘high skill, high wage future’ speech: the invisible half of the population

    Official United Kingdom Parliamentary photographs 2020 Tom Randall (politician) - CC-BY-3.0

    Why do people become MPs?

    Image by Central Bylines Team - derived from eligible Creative Commons sources

    Gaslighting an electorate – the moral bankruptcy of Edward Leigh 

    Adobe Stock licensed: Gibberish
by egokhan

    Lucy Allan talks gibberish

    Image by Number 10 for flickr licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

    Red wall voters to Johnson: in the name of God, go!

    Say no to the elections bill

    Say no to the Elections Bill

    Trending Tags

    • Lifestyle
      • All
      • Art
      • Books
      • Dance
      • Festivals
      • Food
      • Fun & Games
      • Movies
      • Music
      • Poetry
      • Sport
      • Theatre
      • TV
      Books shelves looking up to sunny sky with clouds

      Fabulous Fancies brings former shop back to life as a community library

      Heads

      Peripeteia

      book cover shot

      Big weekend, bigger trouble: book reviews

      Abba

      This writer’s life: a diary. Part 5: Thank you for the music

      Stefan Laurant

      Shocked, surprised and, at times, slightly sozzled – Part 1

      What will happen if Boris Johnson resigns

      Hallelujah with an H, Alleluia with an A

      Image by author

      Petrol

      Image by author

      Greedy Breeder

      Three recipes for using raspberries

      Three recipes for using up homegrown raspberries

      Trending Tags

        • Dance
        • Food
        • Music
        • Poetry
        • Recipes
        • Sport
      • Business
        • All
        • Economy
        • Technology
        • Trade
        cloudy beer

        UK’s first cloudy beer

        Cost of living crisis

        Crisis? What crisis? The cost of living crisis and political responses

        Adobe Stock licensed image by hanohiki

        Bad news for Newark: 110 jobs lost as town’s top employer withdraws to the EU 

        Promotion image from Colleague Box website

        Pandemic start-up success story hampered by Brexit barriers

        Image licensed by Pixabay

        Information is power: its loss can be devastating

        Photo by Matt Bango on StockSnap

        Hassle in High Peak: Robert Largan’s solar farm shenanigans

        Adobe Stock licensed - image by blackday

        British Gas-lighting a nation: how energy companies are exploiting their customers with increased prices

        circular economy

        Reflections on Boris Johnson’s ‘high skill, high wage future’ speech

        Dog wrapped in a blanket, luckily he does not have to pay the bill.

        Fuel bills and service blunders as energy prices start to bite

        Trending Tags

        • Levelling up
        • Economy
        • Technology
      • Region
        • All
        • East Midlands
        • West Midlands
        Johnson 5th Wedding

        Johnson’s fifth wedding?

        Books shelves looking up to sunny sky with clouds

        Fabulous Fancies brings former shop back to life as a community library

        The River Stour

        Shipston-on-Stour medical centre

        Chris_on_Encharnted

        Christina Collins Rugeley canal murder – Christina Collins with the same name and age re-tells the story

        Pro-EU campaign group, Stratford4Europe, relaunches its campaign!

        Pro-EU campaign group, Stratford4Europe, relaunches its campaign!

        Mallard Pass Solar Farm

        Will the Mallard Pass Solar Farm benefit the local community?

        Johnson

        Everything changes

        Spaghetti Junction at 50: how the fabled Midlands interchange put Birmingham on the map

        Spaghetti Junction at 50: how the fabled Midlands interchange put Birmingham on the map

        A closeup view of the Peak District National Park Buxton, the UK

        Largan at large: following the money in High Peak

        Trending Tags

          • East Midlands
          • West Midlands
        • Events
        No Result
        View All Result
        • Home
        • News
          • All
          • Brexit
          • Education
          • Environment
          • Health
          • Transport
          • World
          ME left Merryn Crofts bed-bound and she died shortly after her 21st birthday - Image by meassociation.org.uk

          Please don’t leave ME behind… again

          Can we trust charities with our money

          Can we trust charities with our money?

          Adobe Stock - By creativeneko

          The Lost Opportunities List

          breast cancer cells

          This writer’s life: a diary. Part 4: Cancer and me

          Diabetes test

          Lifesaving diabetes project recognised with Midlands community innovation award

          water pollution

          The worst we have seen for years: the Environment Agency’s damning verdict on the water companies

          Red weather warning

          Red weather warning? Heat wave hits central England

          Pro-EU campaign group, Stratford4Europe, relaunches its campaign!

          Pro-EU campaign group, Stratford4Europe, relaunches its campaign!

          Mallard Pass Solar Farm

          Will the Mallard Pass Solar Farm benefit the local community?

          Trending Tags

          • Johnson
          • Ukraine Conflict
          • Brexit
          • Education
          • Environment
          • Health
          • Transport
          • World
        • Politics
          Khalid Mahmood

          Birmingham Labour MP unfairly dismissed aide

          Adobe Stock - By creativeneko

          The Lost Opportunities List

          Tractor ploughing a field

          The loss of freedom of movement has detonated the UK’s demographic time bomb

          Nadhim Zahawi

          When I worked for Nadhim Zahawi

          boris-johnson

          Boris Johnson wasn’t unfortunate, he was incompetent – and here’s why

          Pipelines

          The looming energy emergency

          Photo by Daniel Reche 
 pexels.com

          Run with Refugees: showing solidarity with refugees ahead of Commonwealth Games in Birmingham

          Right or wrong

          The involvement of Midlands MPs in the mass resignation events last week

          Image by Stan

          Grade A trolling by Hugh Grant on Andrea Jenkyns for middle finger gesture outside Downing St

          Trending Tags

          • Levelling up
        • Opinion
          Adobe stock licensed image by Jorm S

          Freedom and conservatism

          This work is from the National Child Labor Committee collection at the Library of Congress. According to the library, there are no known copyright restrictions on the use of this work.

          Reflections on Boris Johnson’s ‘high skill, high wage future’ speech. Fashion – Fix up, look smart! 

          Adobe Stock licensed image by motortion

          Reflections on Boris Johnson’s ‘high skill, high wage future’ speech: the invisible half of the population

          Official United Kingdom Parliamentary photographs 2020 Tom Randall (politician) - CC-BY-3.0

          Why do people become MPs?

          Image by Central Bylines Team - derived from eligible Creative Commons sources

          Gaslighting an electorate – the moral bankruptcy of Edward Leigh 

          Adobe Stock licensed: Gibberish
by egokhan

          Lucy Allan talks gibberish

          Image by Number 10 for flickr licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

          Red wall voters to Johnson: in the name of God, go!

          Say no to the elections bill

          Say no to the Elections Bill

          Trending Tags

          • Lifestyle
            • All
            • Art
            • Books
            • Dance
            • Festivals
            • Food
            • Fun & Games
            • Movies
            • Music
            • Poetry
            • Sport
            • Theatre
            • TV
            Books shelves looking up to sunny sky with clouds

            Fabulous Fancies brings former shop back to life as a community library

            Heads

            Peripeteia

            book cover shot

            Big weekend, bigger trouble: book reviews

            Abba

            This writer’s life: a diary. Part 5: Thank you for the music

            Stefan Laurant

            Shocked, surprised and, at times, slightly sozzled – Part 1

            What will happen if Boris Johnson resigns

            Hallelujah with an H, Alleluia with an A

            Image by author

            Petrol

            Image by author

            Greedy Breeder

            Three recipes for using raspberries

            Three recipes for using up homegrown raspberries

            Trending Tags

              • Dance
              • Food
              • Music
              • Poetry
              • Recipes
              • Sport
            • Business
              • All
              • Economy
              • Technology
              • Trade
              cloudy beer

              UK’s first cloudy beer

              Cost of living crisis

              Crisis? What crisis? The cost of living crisis and political responses

              Adobe Stock licensed image by hanohiki

              Bad news for Newark: 110 jobs lost as town’s top employer withdraws to the EU 

              Promotion image from Colleague Box website

              Pandemic start-up success story hampered by Brexit barriers

              Image licensed by Pixabay

              Information is power: its loss can be devastating

              Photo by Matt Bango on StockSnap

              Hassle in High Peak: Robert Largan’s solar farm shenanigans

              Adobe Stock licensed - image by blackday

              British Gas-lighting a nation: how energy companies are exploiting their customers with increased prices

              circular economy

              Reflections on Boris Johnson’s ‘high skill, high wage future’ speech

              Dog wrapped in a blanket, luckily he does not have to pay the bill.

              Fuel bills and service blunders as energy prices start to bite

              Trending Tags

              • Levelling up
              • Economy
              • Technology
            • Region
              • All
              • East Midlands
              • West Midlands
              Johnson 5th Wedding

              Johnson’s fifth wedding?

              Books shelves looking up to sunny sky with clouds

              Fabulous Fancies brings former shop back to life as a community library

              The River Stour

              Shipston-on-Stour medical centre

              Chris_on_Encharnted

              Christina Collins Rugeley canal murder – Christina Collins with the same name and age re-tells the story

              Pro-EU campaign group, Stratford4Europe, relaunches its campaign!

              Pro-EU campaign group, Stratford4Europe, relaunches its campaign!

              Mallard Pass Solar Farm

              Will the Mallard Pass Solar Farm benefit the local community?

              Johnson

              Everything changes

              Spaghetti Junction at 50: how the fabled Midlands interchange put Birmingham on the map

              Spaghetti Junction at 50: how the fabled Midlands interchange put Birmingham on the map

              A closeup view of the Peak District National Park Buxton, the UK

              Largan at large: following the money in High Peak

              Trending Tags

                • East Midlands
                • West Midlands
              • Events
              No Result
              View All Result
              Central Bylines
              No Result
              View All Result
              Home News Brexit

              Pandemic start-up success story hampered by Brexit barriers

              Simon Ferrigno catches up with Adam Bamford of Colleague Box, a successful pandemic start-up confronting the difficulties of post-Brexit exports

              Simon FerrignobySimon Ferrigno
              14-04-2022 10:21
              in Brexit, Politics, Trade
              Promotion image from Colleague Box website

              Promotion image from Colleague Box website

              Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
              ADVERTISEMENT

              Natalie and Adam Bamford started Colleague Box during the Covid-19 pandemic, but its growth to a multi-million pound business in just two years is being hampered by Brexit barriers to exports.

              We caught up with chief executive Adam Bamford to learn more. As a start-up, their experience shines a different light on trade after Brexit compared to that of established businesses we’ve covered previously. 

              Adam told us the company “grew from an idea our old CEO had when the pandemic first hit”. This was a time when that business had furloughed many of its 70 staff. He continues, “People were at home with kids, not really part of company day to day”. He describes the CEO calling him while he was painting fences to say, “I want to send everybody a gift”. He wanted something personalised, affordable and that would fit through the letterbox, because, Adam says, “we’re all looking at the bank balance at that time”. 

              Letterbox hugs

              They were able to make the gifts very personal as they knew all the staff, adding touches about ‘kids and dogs’, and the importance of people’s jobs even when not in the office. Each cost about £8.00, Adam recalls, adding “the response from staff was phenomenal”. He says that a few weeks after this they got a call from Lincoln City football club who had seen online posts about these gifts. 

              They wanted to take the opportunity to see if there was a possible business, so they agreed to Lincoln City’s request – in exchange for a press release. Liam Scully, Lincoln’s CEO “did us proud”, Adam recalls, “it caught the mood about making people feel loved and still part of a company”.

              “It was almost like we’d walked through the door and given his colleagues a hug.” 

              This led to many more enquiries and was the real birth of Colleague Box as a personalised gifting company, “delivering happiness; bright colours, nice things through the post with a personalised message”. Adam continues, “we sold first boxes for actual cash in May 2020 and grew steadily through June, when we did a marketing campaign and got an order for 21,000 pumpkins”.

              21,000 pumpkins

              A well-known courier wanted to hold a pumpkin-carving competition for all their staff. Adam said yes before checking the numbers, thinking it would be just a few hundred. “When I went upstairs and told Natalie, her face was a picture”, he laughs.  

              At this point, they moved the business from their home to their first proper warehouse in Chaddesden, Derby. They ended up employing a lot of students, who were deprived of both university contact and hospitality jobs. He says they created a real buzz, they had youth and a ‘get it done’ energy. 

              The company grew rapidly with orders numbering thousands at a time, some for staff based in Europe. As this was in the transition period, Adam says they could just order without worrying. 

              By this point, they had peaked at some 65 staff and moved to a bigger warehouse in Derby. They had reached a turnover of £1.6m from a standing start, and without so much as a bank loan. Adam says, with some understatement, “it was phenomenal”. 

              He explains that they started at home and, it being lockdown, they would use their one outing a day to stock up on goodies at the supermarket. As they’ve grown, they’ve focused on sourcing from small independent businesses, or those with an ethic they shared. Adam says they looked at Lincoln companies like Naked Marshmallow and the Cocktail Delivery Company or start-ups like Made for Drink. Now they try and avoid big, well-known brands, looking for quality, niche suppliers in the UK. 

              The trouble started after another big order, this time for 23,000 boxes. 

              Put up the barriers

              In January 2021, some of the new post-Brexit rules came into force. Delivery companies brought in new checks and overseas shipping costs went up. By the summer, more rules had arrived. Suddenly, for each order they had three different screens of information to full in. 

              The first, Adam says, was about the recipient. The second was the sending company. The third required details about each product. Not just a chocolate bar or bottle of beer but where it was made, where the raw materials came from. Its weight. Where it was sent to and where shipped from. Where it was made. For every single product in the box. He says, “It took 20 minutes per parcel for an order that might have 30 parcels”. Paperwork had to be stuck to the box, “but we had to swallow that”. Then, “there’s VAT and tax to add, and we could spend an hour, six hours trying to find tax rates until it got to customs. And we’d already given a price to customers”.

              It gets worse

              Adam Bamford says it is often impossible to get the actual amount of customs duty owed from UK systems. He says they recently quoted delivery for boxes to Portugal at 12 Euros, but two of them ended up costing 50 Euros. The five boxes had the same content and matching paperwork. 

              Now, he says, “we have to say to customers we don’t know how much it will cost”. He says they can’t employ a customs broker, because there might be weeks when they have no overseas orders. 

              “We ain’t got a clue what it’s going to be.”

              He says, “It’s not sustainable. It’s crushing our spirit to go out into the EU and do what our customers want us to do”. Sometimes an order will have just one overseas box, but recently they turned down an order for 3000 boxes. Adam describes how “we had to say there’s no point in us looking at this, it’s going to cost tens of thousands on delivery fees”. 

              Like many businesses, they’re exploring setting up a base in the EU. “It’s a massive gamble and a massive amount of money to go out of the country”, Adam complains. But, he continues, while “it hurts on so many levels as you go through the supply chain, it’s not sustainable in the long term [to continue as we are]”. 

              “What the hell did we do that for?”

              Businesses they talk to, he says, see no benefits and are are saying, “what the hell did we do that [Brexit] for?” It’s almost as though the government didn’t really understand what Brexit would really mean.

              Dominic Raab: "I hadn't quite understood the full extent of this but… we're particularly reliant on the Dover-Calais crossing"

              Labour accuses #Brexit secretary of not knowing "the very basics" after speech on trade

              More: https://t.co/sJySjzmx3M

              [tap video to expand] pic.twitter.com/RteA7dTJZn

              — BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) November 8, 2018

              Adam and Natalie have been in touch with their local MP, Amanda Solloway, who has visited their warehouse. He says she asked them what she could do to help them. He laughs a little at this recollection, because “Brexit, cost of living, energy prices, we can’t do any of that, but they are literally the things holding us back. They’re hard, I get that but they are the things stopping us”.

              He says cost rises and energy rises mean that suddenly it’s not looking sensible to upgrade vans and cars from diesel to electric. Struggles to ship to Europe and the current cost of living crisis “affects our growth and so how much we might invest and how many jobs we could create”.

              He goes back to that order for 23,000 boxes. He describes how everything was ordered and most was ready, but they needed two items ordered from within the EU. Santa hats and gloves printed with a company logo – “these ended up delayed in customs, it was the 11th hour, and we had to refuse other orders”, because they needed to be able to get that order out when the products cleared. They only just made it. 

              Colleague Box is a pandemic success story. But its performance and overseas growth is being hobbled by Brexit.

              Global Britain could do so much better. 

              ADVERTISEMENT
              Previous Post

              What has my council done for me? Pt.3 Housing

              Next Post

              Tweaking Taxes

              Simon Ferrigno

              Simon Ferrigno

              Simon Ferrigno is the editor of Central Bylines. He is a freelance researcher and writer with over 20 years experience working on sustainability. He has also taken part in heritage projects focusing on Black History in Nottingham. In previous careers he has been a musician, chef, and Radio DJ. He writes for Ecotextile News magazine and is the author of two books on cotton and sustainability. He is based in Derby.

              Related Posts

              Khalid Mahmood
              Human interest

              Birmingham Labour MP unfairly dismissed aide

              byAnna Girolami
              5 August 2022
              Adobe Stock - By creativeneko
              Lost Opportunities List

              The Lost Opportunities List

              byCliff Mitchell
              2 August 2022
              Tractor ploughing a field
              Politics

              The loss of freedom of movement has detonated the UK’s demographic time bomb

              byJohn Turner
              19 July 2022
              Nadhim Zahawi
              Politics

              When I worked for Nadhim Zahawi

              byTrevor Russel
              18 July 2022
              Pro-EU campaign group, Stratford4Europe, relaunches its campaign!
              Brexit

              Pro-EU campaign group, Stratford4Europe, relaunches its campaign!

              byCentral Bylines Team
              18 July 2022
              Next Post
              Panama papers

              Tweaking Taxes

              Want to support us?

              Can you help Central Bylines to grow and become more sustainable with a regular donation, no matter how small?  

              DONATE

              Sign up to our newsletter

              If you would like to receive the Central Bylines regular newsletter, straight talking direct to your inbox, click the button below.

              NEWSLETTER

              LATEST

              Johnson 5th Wedding

              Johnson’s fifth wedding?

              8 August 2022
              ME left Merryn Crofts bed-bound and she died shortly after her 21st birthday - Image by meassociation.org.uk

              Please don’t leave ME behind… again

              8 August 2022
              Can we trust charities with our money

              Can we trust charities with our money?

              6 August 2022
              Khalid Mahmood

              Birmingham Labour MP unfairly dismissed aide

              5 August 2022

              MOST READ

              ME left Merryn Crofts bed-bound and she died shortly after her 21st birthday - Image by meassociation.org.uk

              Please don’t leave ME behind… again

              8 August 2022
              Tractor ploughing a field

              The loss of freedom of movement has detonated the UK’s demographic time bomb

              19 July 2022
              Image by Stan

              Grade A trolling by Hugh Grant on Andrea Jenkyns for middle finger gesture outside Downing St

              12 July 2022
              Johnson 5th Wedding

              Johnson’s fifth wedding?

              8 August 2022

              BROWSE BY TAGS

              Blue Plaques book review Climate change Community conservation Cost of living crisis Covid Energy Farming foodbank health history immigration Johnson Latest Levelling up My Little Town pollution Rwanda social history Ukraine Conflict Voting Whistleblower
              Central Bylines

              We are a not-for-profit citizen journalism publication. Our aim is to publish well-written, fact-based articles and opinion pieces on subjects that are of interest to people in Central England and beyond.

              Central Bylines is a trading brand of Bylines Network Limited, which is a sister organisation to Byline Times. The Bylines Network and Byline Times are financially, legally and editorially separate entities.


              Learn more about us

              No Result
              View All Result
              • Contact
              • About
              • Donate
              • Privacy policy
              • Bylines network
              • Back Editions
              • Letters to the editor

              © 2022 Central Bylines. Citizen Journalism | Local & Internationalist

              No Result
              View All Result
              • Home
              • News
                • Brexit
                • Education
                • Environment
                • Health
                • Transport
                • World
              • Politics
              • Back in the news
              • Opinion
              • Lifestyle
                • Dance
                • Food
                • Music
                • Poetry
                • Recipes
                • Sport
              • Business
                • Economy
                • Technology
                • Trade
              • Regional Events
              • Donate
              • Newsletter sign up
              • A Cotswold Diary
              • Letters to the editor
              • BYLINES NETWORK
              • Contact

              © 2022 Central Bylines. Citizen Journalism | Local & Internationalist

              Welcome Back!

              Login to your account below

              Forgotten Password?

              Retrieve your password

              Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

              Log In
              X