Lightly Grilled Stephanie Green, Doorstep Organics

When my daughter was about three months old I just started the business at home and went from there. My partner helped me out at first with driving. We both knew what we were talking about from different sides of the business. I’m very into customer service and value for money. If a customer’s happy, I’m happy.

I do basically a 24 hour service. People have phoned me at 11.30pm and I still pick up, because that’s what I do. They can email me and I email them straight back. People call me on the Thursday morning saying, “can you get me some milk? I’ve forgot”. It’s just about giving good customer service, and making sure the customers are happy with what we’re giving them.

It just took off. It means I get to look after my daughter every day. A lot of my work is quite flexible, so I work when she’s asleep and when she’s in bed at night until the early hours of the morning. That’s one of the reasons why I did it.

How long did it take to get going?
It took a few months to get a delivery run that covered the cost. I just started flyering. Most of my deliveries in the early days were to friends, then they told their friends and it went from there. The website helped as well - people just found me. I try to do stuff that costs as little money as possible. If you do a good service, then people tell other people about that. Organic is expensive, but I try to make it as cost effective as possible. I’d rather make less money per item and sell more items. Because then they’ll keep coming back because they get value for money. People care about the local aspect too.

Do you have a typical customer?
The customers we get are varied. Sometimes I go out on the run so I can meet some of the people and what I think they’ll be like from their names - from talking on the phone and their emails is normally so far from the truth! I know most of them quite well now - it’s like we’ve become friends. They’re very loyal as well, and all lovely.

Do you have any plans for the future?
I want to try and build the business up. At the minute the costs are very low. I’m looking at franchising the business into Northumberland using local produce from there, rather than shipping it up from here. Then it’d be good to keep doing that, so it’s not a national company, but lots of little ones with their own local produce.

I’m also trying to get more local produce. I’m also looking in to getting a license so I can sell local wine and beer. Being a vegetarian though, I can’t deal with meat. We’re a vegetarian business, so we don’t do meat. But that means vegetarians can be sure that their food isn’t being contaminated.

www.doorsteporganics.co.uk, 0113 294 2944