Harrow Way Community School Year 10 Enterprise Club students have reached the regional finals of the Real Business Challenge, a national business competition run by Coca-Cola Enterprises.
The six students will be off to Brighton in February for one of only 11 regional finals, where they will work alongside business mentors from Coca-Cola Enterprises on a new live challenge.
Since September the students have met once a week after school. The challenge brief was to form a company and develop a healthy juice with inspiration taken from one of the countries taking part in the 2015 Special Olympics.
Superfruits was the company created which, following market research, took inspiration from Japan to come up with the new drink ‘Rising Fun’ (a play on the loose translation of Nippon as the Land of the rising sun).
Research conducted by the Superfruits team showed there were many citrus and tropical fruit flavoured drinks on the market but none from Asia. Rising Fun takes the Asian flavours and spices of persimmon, ginger and cinnamon, the recipe to which was perfected following consumer taste tests.
The students were also keen for Superfriuts to be a company with strong environmental values. The product packaging they devised utilises recycled plastic and is cube shaped to ensure the minimum use of plastic whilst optimising the maximum number of cartons for transportation purposes.
The enterprising students submitted their market research findings, drink details, including health benefits, packaging requirements and costings to the Real Business Challenge which secured their place for the regional final in Brighton on the 6th February 2015.
Nicola Gregson, Associate Senior Leader for Personalised Learning at Harrow Way said: “The team at Superfruits have done incredibly well to beat some very strong competition to reach the next stage of the Real Business Challenge.”
“The process has seen them all develop many enterprising and entrepreneurial skills as well as learning some of the key aspects of setting up a business such as market research and marketing. They have also proved to be an excellent team, utilising each individual’s strengths to create a great product and work effectively as a company.”
Coca-Cola Enterprises launched the first Real Business Challenge in Yorkshire in 2003. Since then over 220,000 students have benefited from the programme which is now national, open to secondary schools across England, Scotland and Wales
For more information on Harrow Way Community School, please call 01264 364533 or visit www.harroway.hants.sch.uk. Visits to the school by appointment are always welcome.
