STIRRING business victories this year have been announced by The Wicked Coffee Company Ltd, with hundreds of thousands of pounds-worth of new deals throughout the UK.

The coffee supplier, based on the Thorp Arch Trading Estate, Wetherby, saw its sales boosted by a fifth and now expects its turnover to rise from £830,000 to £1.2 million.

That is why managing director Fergus Walsh and his finance director wife Rona have high hopes for their pitch to become both Small Business Of The Year and Family Business Of The Year.

After all, they have secured their biggest contract to date – an order worth about £300,000 with international services company ISS; they have just renewed the firm’s ongoing agreement with National Union of Student Services Ltd (NUSSL) under which it now supplies 120 UK universities with beverages, snacks and equipment; and it is a nominated supplier for Beacon, the UK’s top purchasing consortium for the hospitality industry, with more than 2,000 members.

Now the couple, who support the Fairtrade Foundation when sourcing their quality coffee, are planning “organic, aggressive growth and acquisition in order to secure its future”.

They are buoyed by negotiations to supply a chain of motorway service stations and a major high-street retailer.