Little Dish serves up success with Lloyds TSB

Little Dish, the number one brand in fresh, healthy children’s meals is set to double retail sales to £14 million in the next two years after securing an invoice discounting facility from Lloyds TSB Commercial Finance.

The company, based in West London, supplies stores across the UK and in Ireland with its range of fresh meals made from 100% natural ingredients and no added salt or sugar. Little Dish is available in Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose and on Ocado.com.

Founders Hillary Graves and John Stapleton set the company up in 2005 to offer parents a fresh alternative to jars of baby food, which typically have a shelf life of 18 months.

Little Dish now feeds 100,000 children each week, having begun as a trial in 20 Waitrose stores in 2006.

The firm secured a factoring facility from Lloyds TSB Commercial Finance in 2007 to help manage its debtor book and support growth as it continued to win new listings.

As the company expanded, Hillary and the team decided to bring credit-control in-house and have switched to an invoice discounting facility from Lloyds TSB Commercial Finance.

Based on the value of the firm’s issued invoices, the facility will boost the company’s cash flow, enabling it to implement its ambitious growth strategy.

Little Dish, which employs nine people, is now on track to double retail sales to £14 million in the next two years, with plans to extend its range of healthy meals and move into other categories such as healthy lunch box options and snacks.

Hillary said: “We started Little Dish because no one was making fresh, healthy food for young children. On nights when parents didn’t have time to cook, choices were limited to long life baby food jars or traditional ready meals full of additives, salt and sugar.

“When Little Dish started off in my kitchen five years ago we were only listed in a handful of stores. However, as research emerged that a young child’s diet can have a profound effect on their long term health, IQ and school performance, our fresh meals became more and more popular. Little Dish is now available in supermarkets nationwide and we’re feeding 100,000 children each week.

“The support from Lloyds TSB Commercial Finance has been intrinsic in pushing our growth forward, from the early days when we required a stable cash flow to pitch for new listings with the supermarkets, to today when extra headroom is needed to fulfil large orders and develop new products.”

Chris Furnell, client manager at Lloyds TSB Commercial Finance, said: “Hillary found a gap in the market and capitalised on the opportunity to bring fresh food to the demographic which needs it most.

“The company has a great business model in place, with plans to bring new products to market and expand internationally over the next few years. I would encourage other firms in the food and drink industry to take a leaf out of Hillary’s book and drive innovative products backed by a sound cash flow solution to stimulate growth.

“Factoring has an in-built credit control facility which is ideal for smaller businesses. As a firm such as Little Dish expands it may prefer to bring this function in-house and in this instance an invoice discounting facility can be ideal.

“This funding option is based on issued invoices and grows in-line with sales, making it a flexible option for growing companies like Little Dish.”

Little Dish also banks with Lloyds TSB Commercial for day-to-day support.