SNACKING ON SUCCESS

A GROUP of entrepreneurial students are aiming to take a bite out of their school canteen’s business by launching their own snack shop on campus.
 
The new venture, Paddy’s Bites, recently had its official opening at the British School of Bahrain (BSB) after a successful soft opening.

The shop, located inside the school, sells coffee and tasty bite-sized treats to hungry students and the team even have a bicycle to cruise around the Hamala campus while delivering their orders.

Bright business students William Perois, 14, Aurore Mariot, 15, Nicole Kashu, 15, Yannis Panagis, 15, Roshini Rahamathullah, 15, and Richard Agulay, 14, are taking part in the extra-curricular activity, which sees them working in shifts during break-time.

William said: “We have all been involved with every area of the business from its name, to the marketing, selling and the making of the snacks and coffee.”

As the snacks such as croissants and Danish pastries are made with wheat, and the Irish name for a wheat field is a paddy, the project title was cleverly conceived.

Aurore said: “The café upstairs is only for teachers and parents so we’ve been getting a lot of business from the students, in fact, even some of the staff have started coming round to Paddy’s Bites!”

To make their business more accessible, the team invested in a bicycle, which they ride around the campus to drum up business.

The bike is proving so popular that other students have tried to hitch a ride while the team is dishing out their fare.

Richard said: “The bike is great and the guys, more so than the girls, definitely have a lot of fun cycling around delivering the food.”

The girls, however, say they prefer acting as brand ambassadors and preparing the coffee and the snacks.

Nicole said: “This is a big opportunity and it has given us a great chance to get some early work experience and help us understand how to run a business.”

It isn’t just the students cashing in on the venture, their parents are also involved. Whatever the students sell, they earn a portion of the profits, to be shared with their parents. Each parent and child pair will receive a 3.3 recurring percentage cut of the profits.

The students took a course in food preparation at Al Areen Palace Hotel where they were taught by skilled professionals on how to prepare the snacks.

Richard said: “They introduced the concept to us, they showed us a slide show and brought all our parents in as well to familiarise us with the products.

“They showed us the whole process. We made some ourselves and it went pretty well.”

However, this was just the beginning of the learning process and they have another course coming up soon to help them fine-tune their skills.

The coffee at Paddy’s Bites is proving exceptionally popular with the school’s older pupils, which the team attributes to a special ingredient … love.

“We put a lot of hard work and passion into the business,” explained Yannis.

Head of school, Dr Charles Wall, said: “Six of BSB’s most enterprising Year 10 students and their parents, have joined the BSB Entrepreneurs Academy and successfully launched their first venture, ‘Paddy’s Bites’, which provides five-star refreshments canapés, at their purpose-built coffee shop in the BSB Atrium.

“The Entrepreneurs Academy aims to provide students and parents with the support and expertise to realise entrepreneurial potential with a target of launching several successful ventures per annum.”

The main target audience for Paddy’s Bites, according to the team, are sixth formers who can enjoy a coffee with their studies.

“We’ve been told our coffee is better than some well established brands, which is a great compliment,” said William.

Proud mum and BSB business development manager, Tania Kashou, added: “As a parent I’m very proud to see young children starting their own businesses and they’re so excited about what they do. As parents we will give them the full support they need to become successful.”