Foodhub has become Britain’s third biggest online food-ordering portal with a combination of sound judgement and a bit of cheek!

It’s the no-frills entrant to the UK’s food delivery sector. In a recent promotional campaign, they encouraged users to “Just Delete” other competitor apps!

FoodHub now has 22,000 takeaways on its books, compared with 18,000 restaurants for Uber Eats, having grown 160% in 2020, thanks to a surge in demand during the pandemic.

Based in Stoke-on-Trent but also with staff in India, Australia and the US, FoodHub has increased its turnover from £3m to around £30m in the past three years.

And they’ve now secured significant funding from BOOST&Co as it enters negotiations with private equity firms to raise £100m.

Jonny Gould spoke to Mohamed Chaudry, the company’s chief financial officer.

This is Jonny Gould's SME Walkabout with BOOST&Co.

We're heading to Norwich as first point on our of tour of East Anglia as we celebrate world-class innovation once more with the Cofinitive 21toWatch Awards.

Celebrating Nicholas Parsons' best weekend work in Norwich, we talk to Dr Berwin Clarke of Iceni Diagnostics, who use revolutionary carohydrate-based technology in biotech, we check-in on the fascinating world of holography with Aleksandra Pedrasewska of Vivid-Q and Gita Khalili of Glycovue brings mobile diabetes management to the world.

We’re heading east again to talk to three extraordinary entrepreneurs, recognised by The Cofinitive #21toWatch awards, sponsored by BOOST&Co, which celebrate the world-class people, companies and things they make and do across Cambridge and the east of England.

Flusso, the world’s smallest flow sensor designed for low-cost, high-volume applications.

Cambridge GaN Devices, who’ve found a brilliant way to make transistors that are over 100 times faster, lose 5 – 10 times less power and are 4 times smaller than existing silicon equivalents.

And Spotta, which combines AI, machine learning and IoT sensors to create a digital way of tackling pests.

They cause over $440bn in damage each year, affecting industries as diverse as hospitality, farming and forestry.

🎙It’s all happening in Cambridge and the east of England. Listen to a fascinating episode of innovation, disruption and business vision!

Another episode, another trailblazing female entrepreneur.

Welcome to Jonny Gould’s SME Walkabout, Emma Sinclair MBE!

During lockdown, Emma started an initiative which caught my eye: a way to give more SMEs the critical advice they needed to navigate the commercial emergency of lockdown.

With a full-time day job and a full-on family, she didn’t have much time or bandwidth - yet she knew when she did reach out, it really helped.

So Emma opened up a few half-hour slots every week asking for £50 in return for 30 minutes of her time.

She then spent that money gifting something from another SME. That way she derived some tangible value, sending people gifts and reaching people who otherwise wouldn’t be on her direct radar.

Emma founded car park management firm Target Parking (which she has since exited) and now co-leads tech company EnterpriseJungle.

She’s the youngest person in the UK to take a company public and her determination and entrepreneurial zeal led to an MBE in the Queen’s 90th Birthday Honours for services to entrepreneurship.

Emma’s also the first mentor of Building Young Futures, a UNICEF initiative aimed to teach disadvantaged youths in developing countries business and life skills so that they’re better equipped to find work or start a business.

LISTEN 🎧 to the powerful Emma Sinclair MBE.

We’ll be updated by Lance Forman, CEO of H Forman & Son, smoked salmon manufacturers since 1905.

We’ll also be replaying a part of the interview with the WEIRD CEO, Charles Towers Clark, who’s revolutionary thinking on running businesses has proved spectacularly right with the onset of the pandemic.

Ironically, I interviewed him about the changes we can expect in our work-lives - just as lockdown in March 2020 was starting.

And as the cofinitive #21toWatch prepares for its awards ceremony, I catchup with a nominee who’s on the shortlist for a second successive year, it’s Agile Analog’s CEO, Tim Ramsdale.

Jonny Gould’s SME Walkabout welcomes two guests today: BOOST&Co’s Cambridge principal, Faye McDonough and Lance Forman, managing director of H Forman & Son, smoked salmon manufacturer.

We focus on the forthcoming Cofinitive #21toWatch, sponsored by BOOST&Co and a story of family business survival by emergency “pivoting” on more than one occasion.

It’s a celebration of the people, companies and ‘things’ they create across Cambridge and the East of England, setting standards in innovation and entrepreneurship across the globe.

#21toWatch showcases the lesser known, recognising exciting new entries across all market sectors and the panel of judges will assess each SME on Innovation, Challenge, Influence, Viability and Memorability.

Entries have now closed and the shortlist is announced at the start of February, with the annual #21toWatch Top21 unveiled in a unique event on the first Thursday in March 2021.

You’ll hear some of the winners right here!

And if there was a world champion of “pivoting” a business plan to survive, to up sticks and restart to survive, the award might go to an independent salmon smokehouse in London’s East End. I talk to Lance Forman, the fourth generation family member of the only smokehouse left in that part of the country.

This is part 2 of Jonny's conversation with Kate Hardcastle MBE. In the first part, Kate discussed her 25 years at the heart of changing customer insight and how she advised SMEs and larger corporations on how to anticipate those changes.

In this second episode, Kate argues there was "patterning" going on before lockdown - and Covid has only served to speed things up.

Jonny Gould's SME Walkabout is supported by BOOST&Co.

Kate Hardcastle MBE, a.k.a. “The Customer Whisperer” is one of the UK’s leading ‘go-to’ business experts.

You’ve seen her on TV & radio anticipating changing habits, consumer trends and how business both small, medium and large should adapt.

All in all, she’s been at the heart of commercial trends for 25 years.

I’ve worked with Kate on Sky News, talkRADIO and on an initiative called Indie Business Live where leading UK performers, lifestyle stars and businesses came together in the summer of 2020 for an online festival of performances and talks to showcase SMEs through the most challenging of times.

And we keep hearing that word “pivoting” in the year just passed. How you’ve got to pivot or amend your product or service to navigate new Covid realities.

Kate is a pivoter herself, starting life as a singer with Martha Reeves and the Vandelas.

Listen 🎧 for some unique data-driven and experiential insights you can take for your business into 2021 with Kate Hardcastle MBE.

This is the second part of a two-part episode focusing on Birmingham's famous old metal manufacturing industries.

In part one, Rowan Crozier, CEO of Brandauer explained how his state-of-the-art business, started way back in 1862, has thrived despite these straitened times.

And now we hear from the President of the Confederation of British Metalforming, Stephen Morley with his summary of 2020 and his forecast for the industry once Brexit has been signed and sealed between the UK and the European Union.

Jonny Gould's SME Walkabout is sponsored by BOOST&Co.

Birmingham’s famous Jewellery Quarter is our destination for this fascinating episode on metal manufacturing.



We take our appliances for granted. We press buttons, switch on the power and expect our laboursaving devices to do the rest.

But the industrial processes behind the manufacture of this equipment carries thousands of hidden parts made of metal and plastic, built by different companies across multiple borders.

This episode focuses on C. Brandauer & Co Limited, a state-of-the-art metal-stamping components business, which despite its ultramodern systems has been in existence since 1862!

It’s a tradition which harks back to the Midlands’ earliest industrial heritage.

But what are the challenges facing the company now? How are they navigating the pandemic? Are they making more of something and less of something else since Covid began? And in exporting to 22 countries, what effect does Brexit have on them?

LISTEN to a compelling conversation with CEO Rowan Crozier.

Jonny Gould’s SME Walkabout is brought to you in association with BOOST&Co.