Upcycling Triumph at Young Enterprise

Seymour Hotels has been providing visitors to Jersey with hospitality of the highest quality for almost 100 years. An enormous part of our success is due to the talented people who choose to work for us, and we are committed to nurturing and developing home grown talent.

With this in mind, it made sense for us to become involved with Young Enterprise, an organisation tasked with giving young people an insight into the world of entrepreneurship and work.

When we signed up to act as business advisers to a company of 16 and 17 years olds, Claire Reynard, Group Personnel and Training Manager, couldn't have imagined the journey they would take us on.

Money from old glass

The company was called Foursquared, because initially it consisted of 16 young people, and there's no doubt that they exceeded our expectations on almost every front . What's incredible is that they did so by making money from old glass bottles!

Pierre, Managing Director of Foursquared, explains how the firm came to their business opportunity.

"We started the business in March and quickly found a product that we thought the public would love. We felt that there was a gap in the market for handmade, upcycled drinking glasses that recycle glass bottles that could potentially be thrown away as waste."

With low costs for raw materials and a ready supply of bottles needing upcycling, Foursquared found an eager client base by selling at fairs and a range of events. The figures are startling, showing that they managed to achieve a 71% profit margin from the sale of glasses and from fundraising events such as a bingo evening.

A journey into business

Importantly, Foursquared were expected to do more than manufacture and sell; they had to manage the whole of their business, including the running of support functions such as Human Resources. As business adviser, Seymour Hotels helped to guide the team through all of the processes they would need to run the company efficiently.

Impressively, Foursquared managed to reach the Young Enterprise final, held at the beginning of May. When the results were announced, the team was bowled over to discover it had won the award for Best Overall Company, and that Pierre had won the Best Managing Director award.

To say that the team at Seymour Hotels was delighted is something of an understatement. To have helped a group of young islanders win such an important competition is incredibly satisfying. Claire Reynard, Stef Seymour, Scott Hollywood and Dave Hodge all gave up a significant amount of their free time to advise Foursquared and there was no better way for the company to thank them than to scoop the main awards!

Needless to say, we're already looking forward to the next Young Enterprise competition, and to seeing what the talented young entrepreneurs behind Foursquared do next.

 

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