Caerphilly Business Forum Member Claire Lukins, of Plant 2 Plate, discusses overcoming the pitfalls when looking for business premises.
I always knew that at some point in my career I wanted to start my own business. When a voluntary redundancy opportunity arose at my previous job, I felt it was the right time to finally pursue my real passion in life; cooking.
Plant 2 Plate was founded in 2004, a family run catering business, that produces healthy food which is free of artificial additives. Initially cooking healthy ready meals and selling sandwiches around Caerphilly, Plant 2 Plate has now expanded into a fully functioning catering company for business events, weddings and parties, with regular customers including the National Assembly, British Dental Association, Natural Resources Wales, Western Power and Caerphilly Business Forum.
Due to a fantastic and loyal customer base, particularly in Caerphilly, Plant 2 Plate was becoming increasingly busy, especially when coupled with looking after two young children. It soon became apparent that the business was outgrowing my home and, with this in mind, I began looking for premises in Caerphilly to act both as a shop front and kitchen.
Making the jump from home to business premises was not an easy one. Finding somewhere that fulfilled our kitchen requirements, but with a shop front was more difficult than anticipated. While some premises were far too small, on the other end of the spectrum were the larger overpriced premises which I couldn’t justifying spending all my savings on.
There are many things to bear in mind when looking for commercial property. More often than not you discover things along the way, but being as prepared as possible will help you out in the long term. Budgeting throughout the process is crucial, especially for the unexpected costs that will naturally arise. Something I hadn’t initially realised was that setting up utility accounts would require a deposit. Often cheap per unit, but utilities tend to come with a large deposit too, which is why it’s important to keep extra money aside.
With commercial property, it’s negotiable to have the first two to three months’ rent free, particularly in the food industry. This is due to no trading taking place while the property is being decorated or worked upon. It’s definitely worth asking the question of your landlord to see if you would be eligible for this.
Many factors might affect your decision when choosing commercial property, be it location, competition, access for suppliers and so on. At the very start of your search, it’s a good idea to compare commercial property based on location. Caerphilly offered three areas of interest for me, so I used the Valuation Office Agency website to compare business rates for the three different locations. Commercial property is based on pounds per square metre which I wasn’t aware of initially, so using this website was a great way of investigating the best rate comparatively.
It’s important to remember that you must return commercial property to its original state once you leave. With this in mind, don’t make any drastic changes to the property that might not necessarily improve it, because it may cost more in the long run to undo when vacating. It’s important to take note of the condition the property was in when you arrived also, so you don’t incur unwanted fees, when you leave, for reinstating something you didn’t change in the first place.
It was clear when searching for the right premises that there wasn’t enough information out there for first time business owners to help them overcome the inevitable pitfalls they are bound to encounter. It was widely assumed that, because I was looking for commercial premises, I knew about all the additional costs, rules and regulations that come with it.
Because of this, there is definitely a need for more information to be readily on hand to help first time commercial buyers. Perhaps it’s an opportunity for the Council’s planning department to produce a simple user guide on everything from business rates and waste disposal to health regulations and so on. It would be extremely worthwhile. While assisting first time commercial buyers, it might also encourage businesses to remain in Caerphilly and tackle the worrying statistic that half of new businesses nationwide fail within their first five years.
Overcoming some of the pitfalls along the way, we moved into our new Cardiff Road premises in October 2014 and opened the Plant 2 Plate shop to the public in January of this year, finding the right premises to strike the balance between farm shop and catering kitchen. Soon I will be looking to employ staff for Plant 2 Plate and expand the business. Despite the initial struggle with finding the right premises for the business, Plant 2 Plate has come a long way from our daily sandwich runs around Caerphilly.