36 Monday January 3 2022 | the timesBusinessWorking life
Entrepreneurs have had challenges to overcome
during a difficult year, reports Hannah Prevett
GOING FOR GROWTH
Looking back at 2021, ‘the best
delays to supply, Raja turned to an
import specialist. “It’s fresh produce
and any delays at the port were going
to cause us lots of problems and lose
us a lot of money, so rather than
buying directly, just before Brexit we
decided we were going to start using
importers.” The switch had the
desired impact in reducing
complexity for Raja, but it also
“increased our costs”.
A huge amount of her time in
recent months has been spent on
supply chain management. “It’s a
complete nightmare. Costs have gone
up of plastic, cardboard, the PPE,
gloves, hand sanitisers, even
wooden pallets have gone up
from £1 to £4 per pallet.”
Nor does the packaging
shortage show any sign of
abating. “Every time we
place an order for
packaging, the costs have
gone up and the timelines
have gone up. Where
it would have taken
six weeks to get an
order delivered of
printed packaging,
it now takes over
three months,
which means
money tied up
and cashflow
suffers.”
Raja has
experienced
additional
difficultyN
imisha Raja has just
finished putting the
final touches to a
bumper year for Nim’s,
the air-dried fruit crisps
company that she started in 2012. The
business has doubled its turnover to
just shy of £2 million and the team has
grown by ten to twenty-three people.
It also has passed an important
milestone in the past 12 months,
becoming profitable for the first time.
Yet it’s not been a year without
challenges. According to the 58-year-
old: “The Charles Dickens line about
the best of times and the worst of
times encapsulates this year. It’s been
the worst time for all sorts of reasons
— for illnesses, for absences, for
machinery breakdowns, price rises, all
sorts of things. But at the same time
we’ve grown tremendously, which is
so satisfying.” To top it off, in
November she went to Windsor
Castle to collect Nim’s Queen’s Award
for Innovation from the Prince of
Wales, a ceremony postponed from
2020 because of Covid.
The first thing on Raja’s to-do list at
the beginning of 2021 was dealingwith the impact of Brexit on her
business. She turned away from
exports until the implications of
Britain’s departure from the European
Union became clearer. Importing was
another story, however. “We imported
50 or 60 tonnes a year of citrus
fruit from the EU last year.
That’s a big line for us and it’s
growing.”
The company’s air-dried
citrus fruits can be added to
alcoholic and non-
alcoholic drinks. Indeed, a
large part of Nim’s growth
is thanks to its
partnership with a
gin subscription
company. “Their
business doubled
or tripled even
over Covid and so
the demand
increased for us,
too. I don’t know
how we did it,
but we managed
to keep up with
them.”
To avoid Nimisha Raja, Claire Daniels, left, and Anneka Wallington, inset, have faced many