Case studies | RBS

"It all started by selling at local farmers’ markets and shops just a few years ago. From there, and with the support of the bank, we’ve built something special"

Lynn Mann and her husband Chris are founders of Supernature. Since 1852, their family have been tenant farmers at Carrington Barns Farm. “We were looking for a new business idea, and Chris mentioned cold pressed rapeseed oil, and how it was healthier than olive oil,” she recalls. Lynn was soon smitten with the idea of tapping into the growing rapeseed oil market, and Supernature was born. “It all started by selling at local farmers’ markets and shops just a few years ago. From there, and with the support of the bank, we’ve built something special.”

As a bank customer, Lynn found out about our partnership with the free business accelerator Entrepreneurial Spark.  The hubs are based in the bank’s buildings across the UK and provide office space, resource and support– all free of charge. “The bank helped me beyond just traditional banking facilities. I joined their Entrepreneurial Spark programme and learned a huge amount about scaling-up a business and being an entrepreneur. I also tapped into the bank’s networks and connections which are just as important as funding for a start-up.”

As well as gaining business mentoring and advice, Supernature has also benefitted from access to funding indirectly supplied by the bank including £38,000 from the Scottish EDGE fund which was set up and funded by the bank. This helped them buy a second oil press and doubled their output.

Supernature now has more national awards than any other UK producer of cold pressed rapeseed oil and has received various glowing testimonials from Michelin-starred chefs. Their products, made on their small family farm, can now be found in Harrods and as far afield as a supermarkets in Borneo, Hong Kong and Qatar.

Watch a short video to learn more about a superfood harvested by hand from our shores in Scotland. Fiona Houston, Founder and CEO talks about starting the business and future plans.

"It all started after I had children," says Mel Bound, founder of fast-growing women's running community This Mum Runs.

Since its October 2014 launch, more than 2,300 mums from in and around Bristol and Bath have signed up. Everyone, from beginners to marathon runners, is catered for. But it started with a simple shout-out on Facebook for a running buddy; someone who’d run with her after the kids were in bed.

Within two months, the community had grown to 400 people. England Athletics took notice, and agreed to fund the training of some mums to be running coaches. “The first 15 we trained we called Run Makers. Sixty were funded by the end of April 2016. Then we organised couch-to-5K programmes that people paid to go on.”

Sliding doors moment

That’s when it began to transform into a business. It’s also when it started to get really tough for Mel. “It nearly broke me,” she says. “It was really intense and non-stop.”

Then, while feeding her little boy in the middle of the night, an ad for Entrepreneurial Spark popped into her social media feed. “That was my Eureka moment,” she remembers. “I thought that if I got this thing up and running I’d leave my job and do it full-time. So I applied to Entrepreneurial Spark – who work in partnership with RBS – and, just two weeks later, total serendipity: I was offered voluntary redundancy at work. It was a real sliding doors moment. I got my Entrepreneurial Spark place and we went zero to 100mph overnight.”

The hard work is paying off, as we grow, we’ll look at other ways of making money, like sponsorship and public funding. And by scaling and rolling out nationally, we’ll have a big community of women and lots of insights into behaviours, the triggers to exercise and the obstacles.

This Mum Runs is now trademarked, has recently been rebranded and has a range of merchandise in the pipeline.