JUSTINE Bowman has got our new Business Idol competition off to the sweetest possible start with talk of bulls eyes, pear drops and dolly mixtures.

Justine is the first entrant in our competition to find the most enterprising and imaginative people in the Wore Forest area who have set up businesses within the last two years.

There is a £1,000 prize for the winner, along with a year’s free membership of Kidderminister Big Breakfast Club.

Justine speaks with passionate enthusiasm about the sweet shop she opened a couple of months ago in Radford Avenue, Kidderminster.

The shop, a delight to the eye, freshly painted in pink and white, is called The Sweet Fayre and inside is a kids’ (and grown-ups’) paradise – rows and rows of old-fashioned sweet jars, filled with exotic confections with names like sour apples, troach, millions, sweet peanuts and grandad’s herbals.

“This isn’t just any old shop,” said Justine.

“It’s not what we sell but how we sell it. We want to go back to the old traditions of courtesy and friendliness.

“We don’t rush people, we value our customers and they appreciate it.

“We have had fantastic support and we’re very happy with the way things have gone so far.”

Her partner, Andy Wuzik, helps her in the shop – either that or he is giving guitar lessons in the cellar.

If they won the £1,000, said Justine, they would spend it on a sushi machine and an ice cream maker which, she reckoned, would double their turnover.

Business Idol is being run by the Big Breakfast Club, in conjunction with The Shuttle. The club are a group of business men and women who meet at 7am every Tuesday at La Brasserie, Kidderminster, to swap ideas, contacts and contracts, while enjoying a good breakfast.

There are no joining fees, no paid staff and they find that their relaxed approach works better than many larger and more anonymous breakfast clubs.

They ran their first Business Idol in conjunction with The Shuttle last year. It was such a success that this year they have extended it to include the Stourbridge area and separate reports are appearing in our sister paper, the Stourbridge News.

So, if you have a small business which is less than two years old, we invite you to enter Business Idol now.