Leeds startup off to a healthy start

A business owner who opened a unit at one of our start-up offices in Leeds last year is seeing such healthy business growth that she is taking on a new unit to cater for her training needs. 

Marilou Cordez owns a Saladmaster dealership, which trains sales representatives in how to use the company’s range of healthy cookware products. 

She opened her unit at Photon House Business Centre in April 2015, which she and the team use for training and as a business base. Now Marilou has decided to take on a second unit within the centre, which will be used as an admin office, so her larger unit can be used solely for training.

A healthy business expansion

Marilou says “The nature of the business is cooking, so we needed somewhere that was flexible enough to accommodate that.” 

This is perfect as we have parking space, a door where people can access our unit directly, and 24-hour secure access.

Marilou fell in love with the products from the US-based company when she was introduced to them by a friend in Liverpool several years ago. 

“I knew I had to have the products when I saw my friend cooking chicken without oil,” says Marilou, who previously worked as a midwife and a carer.

“There was the opportunity to become a representative for Saladmaster, and I took it on because it meant I got the cookware system for free and because I loved to cook.”

The taste of success

After spending a year completing the company’s training programme, Marilou moved to Leeds in 2014 and applied to start her own dealership. She can now order the product directly from America and is responsible for training her own team of representatives, who cook for people in their own homes.

“We have standard menus and use different recipes depending on what community we are cooking for,” she explains.

“We hold training every week for our representatives to learn about the products and their benefits, as well as learning the menus. Our aim is not only for our representatives to be financially independent, but to help educate people about eating healthily and improving their way of life through tasty, healthy cooking.”

Catering for the demand for small offices

Business Centre Manager at Photon House, Hayley Waudby, says: “It’s fantastic that Marilou is expanding her business so quickly and taking on a second unit with us. It just shows how a good business can reap fast rewards.”

Similar to Marilou’s success,  our original start-up space in Photon House has been so popular, we are creating new offices to rent in Leeds to keep up with demand. We created 16 small offices at the end of 2014 and are now creating a further six new offices, specifically designed for small companies. 

Hayley says, “By converting a large unit into six smaller ones, we’ll be able to help more startups to get their companies off the ground in affordable style.”

“We’ve pre-let three of the new offices already, which demonstrates the demand for this type of unit.”

For more information about the new units available at Photon House, please contact Hayley on 01132 775 200.