Sussex business gets a boost from Theo!

Chichester based business The Lunchbox Store, got a much sought after boost from ex Dragons’ Den Star and retail guru Theo Paphitis on Monday night by winning an SBS award! The SBS award is a weekly Twitter phenomenon that Theo Paphitis started in October 2010 as his way of helping promote and encourage small businesses across the country.

On Sunday night along with nearly 1000 other businesses, Barry Smyth owner of The Lunchbox Store tweeted the famous entrepreneur in the hope of gaining a magic ‘re-tweet’ and joining the ever growing network of SBS winners.

On Monday evening Barry’s goal finally came to fruition when Theo Paphitis re-tweeted his winning tweet to his army of over 330,000 followers:

@TheoPaphitis Providing a One Stop Shop with exquisite customer service for all things Lunch on the Go www.thelunchboxstore.co.uk #SBS #bizitalk

Barry says of his win “From very small beginnings we are aiming to be the UK's number one destination for lunch-on-the-go products. Social media has played a key part in our growth, and we are hoping that our SBS win and the support of Theo Paphitis, will push us to a significant increase in business over the coming months.”

The Lunchbox Store was born after Barry was made redundant from his 20 year career in the newspaper industry in 2010. Using the redundancy to reassess what would be best for his young family, he and his wife who was already enrolled on ‘return to teaching’ course, decided that Barry would start the business alongside his new ‘stay at home’ dad role!

It has been a fantastic decision so far, as not only is The Lunchbox Store growing steadily, Barry has started a second business www.kimochis.co.uk which sells educational toys designed to help children better understand their feelings and emotions.

Now, with this acknowledgement from such a well-known retail entrepreneur, 2013 is shaping up to be very interesting for this enterprising dad of four!