"Soap stars" are winners in Hayle School export competition
29 November 2007
Three language students who are producing a range of special designer soaps have won a competition to find the top international entrepreneurs of the future.
The winning team, from left: Emma Bates, Tayla Blake and Natasha Parcell
The Soapstars team were chosen as winners by a team of judges at the UK Embassy in Madrid. The team members Tayla Blake, Natasha Parcell and Emma Bates have created a range of affordable and environmentally friendly soaps, which they aim to market in Spain.
The Passport to Export competition, backed by the Regional Language Network South West, UK Trade & Investment and the Cornwall Education Business Partnership, was run for the second year at Hayle Community School.
The competition began with a programme of workshops – called ‘Modern Languages in the Workplace - Exporting Around the World’ – to help students develop their business ideas, understand how to go about exporting their product and work on how to sell it in a foreign language.
Students were then asked to form companies and develop a business idea that they thought had export potential. Four companies presented their ideas to the UKTI international trade team in Madrid last night and the winners were announced in a live video link with the school.
The winning company, Soapstars, will be flown out to Alicante with Flybe, who are supporting the project, on a “business trip”. This will include a visit to a Spanish company that is working with a South West company selling their product and some leisure time in Alicante.
Gwyneth Leonard, of the Regional Language Network South West, said:
"This was a great evening with the company presentations being of a really high standard.
It is so useful for students to see how languages are used in business and I am grateful to UKTI for making this opportunity with the Madrid embassy available."
Rose Brooman, UKTI’s Trade Development Manager, who was on the judging panel in Madrid, said:
“Our congratulations to the Soapstars company for their fantastic presentation. They have worked hard to develop a product with real international trade potential.
"All the students taking part in this project really benefited from the insight they were given into the world of international trade and the crucial part played by languages.
“The work that the students have done really echoes the real-life processes that many new and fledgling exporters undertake with the support of UKTI. UKTI offers a range of services to help businesses develop their international trade, including market research, developing international trade strategies and training. These students will benefit on a small scale from an insight into those services.”
The three other companies in the final were as follows:
LPD Ltd - Luke Wheatley, Paris James, Dylan Jones
@Studio - Coco Fitzgerald-Bevington, Vienna Morgan, Aymie Rochford
GreenFly - Stacey Halliwell, Zoe Gilbert, Nicole Charlston
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