13-year-old Cookham entrepreneur launches lockdown business

A budding 13-year-old entrepreneur from Cookham has started his own business over lockdown.

Since March, like many children, Josh Mustard has been forced to spend a lot of time at home, which is where he decided to start his own dog biscuit making business.

Last year for Christmas, Josh was given a dog biscuit machine that could make 10 biscuits at a time. Now, he has two machines and has been running his home business for eight months.

Josh said: “This year for Christmas I want to support local businesses and charity so I’m going to sell gift bags. Half the money from the gift bags will go towards the charity Foodshare in Maidenhead.’’

Sarah Parfitt, Josh’s mother, said: “There have been a lot of local companies that have struggled over lockdown where we live in Cookham. Josh has been trying to help them out by promoting them on the Facebook page that he created for his business. He’s supported about nine businesses and they’ve helped him by putting little goodies in his gift bags.’’

She added: “Many teenagers have felt really isolated over lockdown so this has given Josh a point of contact. Even though he wasn’t seeing friends, it was nice to go around and drop the biscuits off on the doorsteps. We would go around on our bikes at the weekend delivering to his customers in Cookham, Bourne End and Maidenhead.’’

To see Josh’s Facebook page, visit bit.ly/2KaFrC0