Shropshire caterer's recipe for success as US schoolbus to be a mobile barbecue

Kevin Guerin set up the Ironbridge Catering Company using his own barbecue after being made redundant from his role at motorway service station operator Welcome Break, and has gradually grown his business since then.

He has bought a giant paella dish to broaden his range of services, and now does more than 50 weddings a year, with dozens of other events to boot.

Mr Guerin is now set to take his business forward again after buying the old American school bus on eBay.

The entrepreneur has raised more than £16,000 through the crowd funding website Kickstarter to overhaul the bus, and work is now under way to convert it into a full-time barbecue bus, complete with smoker.

"We saw George Clarke on Incredible Spaces do something similar, so he could go to a festival in comfort," said Mr Guerin, who buys almost all his products from local suppliers. "They got their hands on an American bus and did it up very nicely.

"As caterers you have to differentiate yourself, to have something unique about you. To look different, you have to be different.

"I decided to get the bus. It was a silly idea over a couple of beers, but we went on eBay and found a caterer was selling one that had been used in Ireland in the past selling Ben and Jerry's ice cream.

"If anything, we'll be putting it back to how it was – yellow and black, but with logos on the sides."