Adam takes up the story, 'We've been mates since university days and we’d often talked about setting up a business together but had never actually got round to doing anything concrete. Then, when we were on holiday snowboarding in Switzerland, we decided that the time had come to stop the talking and start some action. So we all took a sabbatical from our jobs and started looking seriously at the possibility of starting up a juice business.

Our basic idea was that we wanted to produce a product that would be completely pure, with no additives, in fact no ingredients at all except fresh fruit. We felt that in today’s fast-moving world, although we all know what is good for us, we don’t always have time to eat or drink healthily. We wanted to make it easier to do just that, and to do it in a way that didn’t smack of puritanism but was actually a pleasure. If you try our drinks we hope you’ll agree that they really are a delight.

Our first operation was at the annual Jazz on the Green festival on Parson’s Green. We bought five hundred quid’s worth of fruit and served juices from a stall. We put up a sign saying that we were on the verge of setting up a business and asked people to vote on whether they thought our product was good enough for us to risk packing in our day jobs.

The punters voted by either throwing their empty bottle in a bin marked ‘yes’ or a bin marked ‘no’. By the end of the day, the ‘yes’ bin was overflowing and the ‘no’ bin was all but empty. So we resigned and started up the business.

We spent six months researching our products, suppliers and markets and launched the business in May of this year. During the planning and research phases, the Portobello Business Centre were brilliant. It was so useful to have somewhere were we could go and talk over our ideas. They also gave us practical help in the shape of recommendations to lawyers and accountants, and last, but hardly least, they helped us to get some of the finance that we needed in the shape of a loan from the bank at well below the normal commercial rate.'

Richard continues, 'We're really enjoying the challenge of running our own business but I'd be lying if I said it was easy. This morning, I was up at five to make some deliveries and I'll probably be working until ten this evening, so it doesn't do a lot for your social life. But, obviously, the incentive is that we hope to reap the rewards of our hard work - and just how hard we work is entirely our decision.'