Park Street Kitchen
Not everyone realises what a Business School lecturer does apart from teaching and research. One of my roles as an Enterprise lecturer is to work with local SMEs, micro businesses and start-ups. This is the story of one of those chance encounters that ended up as a symbiotic partnership between a local start-up and the University of Wolverhampton.
Emma Williams first approached me as her sister was a student on one of my enterprise modules, as part of her Business Management degree, and she was looking to start up her own street food business operating from home and delivering freshly made food to people in her local area. I have experience of setting up and running my own street food business for several years and teaching enterprise and entrepreneurship, as well as mentoring local business and student start-ups. I mentored Emma through the start-up stage and helped advise her on menu design, pricing, logistics, marketing and operational issues for her start-up business Park Street Kitchen. The business flourished during the pandemic as people relied on take-away and delivered food options and then the opportunity arose for Park Street Kitchen to apply for growth funding and a permanent eatery within Wellington Market. I helped with this process and the design and layout of the kitchen and promotional material. During the pandemic our mentoring meetings moved to phone calls and emails but we always kept in touch. The business is now growing further and now employs staff to help cook and deliver the food, as well as trading at market events and the new Youth Market. Park Street Kitchen has gained lots of press coverage in local newspapers, social media channels and local radio. I am so proud of how hard Emma has worked on her business and her success is well-deserved. Being a small part of that success is so rewarding. Emma Williams was also featured in the Business School’s annual Women in Business conference sharing her experiences to other women who are considering starting up in business.
I asked Emma how our mentor/mentee relationship had helped her and her business, and here is her reply in her own words:
"Lisa REALLY helped give me the confidence i needed in the early stages of my new business. Her knowledge was second to none having had the experience of owning a food business herself, helping me prioritise tasks in order to succeed. The time dedicated to help move Park Street Kitchen in the right direction was invaluable - I feel very lucky to have been able to take advantage of the business knowledge of a Wolverhampton University lecturer to help my small business get off the ground.”
One of the most rewarding parts of working in the University of Wolverhampton Business School (UWBS) is our relationship and links with local businesses and how we bring those businesses to our students. We bring businesses into our classrooms, invite them to events and conferences and take students out to visit them in the field. As a result of this partnership with Park Street Kitchen, we now have developed a regular work experience scheme with Wellington Market for our business and marketing students to gain experience of working with the market’s marketing management team and providing valuable work experience links in social media marketing.
All of this experience and real case study elements of working with live businesses gives UWBS students a glimpse into their graduate future, the options available to them in starting their own businesses, consultancy or working within a larger corporation in a graduate position. Many of our students and graduates go on to start up their own businesses and then come back and share their stories and journeys with the current cohorts of students.
If you want to find out more, drop me an email L.Burbidge-Brown@wlv.ac.uk
By Lisa Burbidge-Brown
Lecturer in Enterprise and Entrepreneurship
Wolverhampton Business School