9:37am Tuesday 2nd September 2008
By Owen McAteer
A CHANCE conversation prior to Richard Barker’s sister’s wedding set him and his business partner, Jake Bailey, on to a winning business idea, supplying chairs and furniture to the service industry.
Hill Cross Furniture, which is based at Mr Barker’s former pig farm, has grown from a venture with offices in a store room to an enterprise with a £3m turnover after eight years.
Major contracts have included supplying the International Olympic Committee with chairs for its lounge at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, and providing the furniture for Duncan Bannatyne’s hotel and health clubs.
But the company, based in North Cowton, near Moulton, North Yorkshire, started because Mr Barker’s sister was getting married.
The married father-ofthree said: “I was getting out of pig farming, I needed to find a new full-time job and wanted to get my own thing going.
“My sister got married in December 1999 and the event was in a marquee up here. I saw the company hiring chairs when I thought they would have their own.”
Realising there was a potential market, Mr Barker, 38, found a company in Romania, manufacturing chairs and bought 800 to hire to the marquee industry.
It was at this point Mr Bailey, 38, who Mr Barker has known since he was ten, came on board.
The two men expanded the idea selling chairs and furniture to restaurants, bars, hotels, cafes and other commercial organisations.
Mr Bailey, who lives with his partner and young son, was working as a chartered surveyor at the time.
He said: “The plan was to open this business as a parttime venture alongside other interests.”
But, as both men are quick to acknowledge, their decision to promote their fledgling business on the internet, saw a rapid expansion which turned the business into a full-time occupation, with customers across the world.
Its furniture can be found on the 20,000 tonne cruise liner Discovery, in the Muffin Break and Bodean BBQ Smokehouse chains, in Center Parcs, the Crowne Plaza hotel in Liverpool, Leeds Metropolitan University, the five-star Luton Hoo hotel, spa and golf complex in Bedfordshire, and fashionable London restaurants such as Beach Blanket Babylon and Galvin Bistrot de Luxe.
Export success has also been achieved to the US, Azerbaijan, Val d’Isere and Corsica for Mark Warner Holidays, the Cape Verde Islands, Nigeria and Bahrain, and it was through the internet that the 2006 Winter Olympics contract came about.
Mr Bailey said: “It was through a hospitality company in the South-West who found us on the internet. It was a lot of negotiation.”
They still see the value of the internet and have invested heavily in their system. They still use Edward Robertson, in Darlington, who helped them with their first website, but as their turnover has increased, so has the system’s sophistication.
Mr Bailey said: “We have always invested heavily in setting up the sites and systems. Now we have a very sophisticated computer system. It will have cost us £100,000 to develop and has about 5,000 pictures on it.”
Although the business is still based on the farm, where it has a showroom, the offices have also expanded and there are now 22 staff.
Mr Barker said: “The first Christmas we spent fitting out the old granary where we kept the hen crates as an office. It cost us about £250.
“All the staff love it here and the customers like it. We prefer it to being on an industrial estate.”
Now the company offers every type of chair imaginable, in a style and with fabrics to suit the customer.
Eighty-five per cent of the furniture is now made for the company in Italy, primarily at small familyrun factories and businesses.
The company also has an office in Italy, and its turnover is in excess of £3m.
The company is also the North East’s sole distributor of Italy’s well-known Montbel furniture brand.
They estimate in an average week they would deliver 400 chairs to businesses.
Customers in the North- East include Headlam Hall, in Darlington, McCoys restaurant in central Newcastle, the Dog & Gun in Potto, North Yorkshire, the Flatbread Cafe at the Metro Centre, and the Moon and Sixpence Bar and Brasserie, in Whitby.
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