Inspiration from everywhere

I had a really interesting meeting with my friends from the Jersey Dairy today. Although we are apparently in completely different industries we've both got similar problems.

The level of capital expenditure needed in both of our industries is high and thus makes it difficult to compete in what is a small local market against much larger external players.

The challenge for both of us is how do we sell more product so as to justify the cost of capital invested?

I used to think that if I had an idea which wasn't already "out there" then there must be something wrong. My thinking was that someone must already have thought of it and for what ever reason discounted it. I was just being slow.

All of this changed when I did a recent business course with the Open University called "creativity and perception in management" Here I discovered that many of the most famous inventions or innovations of our time came out of entrepreneurial frustration. Whilst brain storming and focus groups have their place, sometimes it is just about an individual with an idea. This leads me on to my favourite discovery.

I was on the way to a trade show in Trieste in Italy from London. The flight required a change at Frankfurt in Germany. Whilst waiting in the Airport for the connecting flight I visited a sandwich bar that looked slightly different.

It had a wonderfully natural feel, and of course what caught my eye was the fact that they were making tea using loose tea leaves. I immediately checked out the menu and ordered an Assam tea.

The tea was made in a tea glass, which was novel for me being used to a ceramic tea mug. A portion of tea had been placed in a hand made tea bag over which was poured hot water. When the tea had reached a suitable strength I lifted the bag out of the glass using the tag provided and then added milk and sugar as required. It tasted wonderful.

What a fantastic idea. The UK market is dominated by tea bags because inidviduals don't have the time or inclination to deal with loose leaves. The price paid for this convenience is more processed tea and less choice. Here was an opportunity to reverse all that, as this shop had shown, and it allowed a small business like mine to carry a far wider ranges of teas because we didn't need to carry such great volumes of stock as we do for tea bags.

I took loads of notes and when I got home tried to work out what to do, and where to source the required products. However I came across one stumbling block. If you want to sell an upmarket product, simply placing a tea bag in a glass mug wasn't going to look very impressive. Everything went on hold.

It wasn't until I went to a trade show in Atlanta, Georgia that the solution came to me.

I was sitting at breakfast in my hotel and asked for a cup of tea. The waiter placed before me what looked like an upsidedown light bulb, into which he proceeded to place the ubiquitous tea bag, followed by hot water. There in front of me was the solution to the problem of a vessel into which I could put these hand filled tea bags. The Americans call it a "Hottle".

When I look back on it it's quite an amazing series of events. The first idea came to me in Germany, one of the products, namely the hand filled tea bag is a Japanese invention. The Hottle is actually manufactured in Mexico and the whole lot has come together here in Jersey, allowing my business to sell a whole new and original line of teas and tissanes which are of course available on our website!

This whole episode although not yet particularly profitable has helped to spread our overheads and enables us to continue to develop our core business that of roasting coffee.

To return to my friends at the Dairy this too is their challenge how do they not only sell more of but also add value to their core product milk which in turn allows them to spread their costs for the benefit of farmers, consumers and our countryside?

If you have any ideas or suggestions why not contact them. Don't worry if you think someone has already thought of it, they most probably haven't!