Shropshire coffee entrepreneurs hope to bag £80,000
A husband-and-wife team behind a company which manufactures coffee bags is set to sell off a stake in the business to the general public in a bid to raise £80,000 through crowdfunding.
Jeanne and Paul Day launched a coffee bag product after spending time living in Portugal, and after a year of perfecting the design of their product, have launched The Real Coffee Bag Company.
Not to be confused with The Little Coffee Bag Company, another start-up in Shropshire which has targeted a similar marketplace, The Real Coffee Bag Company is currently based in Kenley, between Shrewsbury and Craven Arms.
However, the couple hope that by selling 15 per cent of the businesses via the crowdfunding platform Funding Tree, they can raise £80,000 to move to a larger manufacturing site, buy machinery and go into full-scale production.
The bags use special material sourced from Japan, and the company is currently making each bag by hand at its factory in Shropshire.
Painstaking
In a painstaking process, it takes one and half minutes to make each bag, fill it with freshly ground coffee and seal it.
A machine would make 50 bags in a minute and the company's ambition to raise the capital needed to automate the process would represent a step-change in its progress to date.
Dillen Iyavoo, chief executive and founder of Funding Tree, said: "The Real Coffee Bag Company is the sort of thriving small business that we set up Funding Tree to help.
"With an ingenious product and a substantial target market, it has the potential both to take the hassle out of coffee-making and to make money for its investors.
"Funding Tree is the first major crowdfunding platform to enable companies to raise capital through either equity or loans — and we're proud to be able to connect promising businesses like The Real Coffee Bag Company with investors seeking strong returns."
He added: "With a minimum investment of just £50, we are giving investors both large and small the chance to invest in start-ups and growth-stage companies, and providing British business with a comprehensive alternative to conventional bank finance."
