Students enrolled on the Peter Jones Enterprise Academy at South Essex College, are putting their minds to the test by opening a cakes business within their college.

Steve Newman, the Course Team Leader originally thought of the idea, believing it is “a good way for the students to get business experience first-hand, combat any problems they may face and to be able to work as an overall team to transfer the theory into practice”. With the 10 class students taking the challenge and already putting it into action, they have come up with the name of the business, Cherish Baking, and some innovative ideas of what they are planning to sell to their target market.

The Peter Jones Enterprise Academy is part of the Business and ICT department, and the students get the chance to set up their own business alongside the course, empowering Peter Jones’ ambition for the course to ‘make entrepreneurs’ through ‘learning by doing’. Peter Jones believes there is nothing better than the experience of setting up your own business and having the access of information, education and advice provided within the Academy and having this ensures there is more success of the students being able to maintain and grow their micro-businesses after their two-year education period has finished.

Finance, marketing, operations and production are all of the teams the class agreed to split into. The students gain experience in all areas of their business by changing teams on a regular basis which encourages creativeness.

Cherish Baking, the name chosen by the class aims to pop into the minds of all of you readers when thinking of having a sweet treat, going against the diet or wanting to celebrate an associate/friend’s birthday, are hitting the market with unique and different flavoured cakes, all of which are not always easy to find and very (truly) scrumptious. The aesthetic design of the cakes will be different also, so don’t always expect to receive the round, simple style cakes!

‘Cherish baking’ sells an array of baking goods to college staff and students. Speaking to a student, James Stephenson he states “we will like to expand our market and sell across all three college campuses. Maybe even sell online some day!”.

All the cakes will be handmade by the students, all putting in their own unique twist on each batch, so no batch of cakes purchased will be the same, apart from their spectacular taste of course!  The students have discussions every week to come up with new recipes and ideas. This keeps their idea fresh and gives the customers a new reason to buy from them every week.

So, with all its sprinkles and frosting, it’s THE business you readers absolutely need to Cherish!