ALL you need is love - and to prove the point, a little venture formed by lower sixth-formers at Huntington School has scooped the York title of the Young Enterprise competition.

The teenagers, whose MI Enterprise switched operations midstream when the students felt they were not optimising profits, were applauded by judges who awarded them with the winning £50 cheque at Askham Bryan College. Now they will compete in the North Yorkshire finals at the Pavilions, Harrogate, on Wednesday, May 11.

First they marketed the iconic image of Beatle John Lennon - who with Paul McCartney wrote All You Need Is Love -by spray painting it on old vinyl long-playing records, using stencils, then turning the discs into clocks.

But they miscalculated on the cost of spray paint and found themselves nearly £5 out of pocket.

So MI, which stands for Motivation and Innovation, turned to "love chocolates." They bought heart-shaped chocolates in bulk, as well as cheap recycled card to make pyramid-like containers and printed Valentine messages.

Then they sold it to pupils at £1 per container, offering a service to deliver it to the target of their affections in the school, anonymously or otherwise, during the ten minute registration period on Valentine's Day. It boomed.

The choccy love tokens were snapped up by 90 pupils, clearing a £62 profit and together with the sale of drinks, biscuits and snacks at the school pantomime, the sale of make-it-yourself bracelets and similar Mother's Day chocolate sale, earned the nine teenagers a profit of £167.97.

Some of this went to the Tsunami appeal and the balance distributed to shareholders - parents and friends. It meant that for their 50p stake, shareholders received £1.15.

Their business mentor, Jonathan Powell, of employment consultancy Millar Brunswick of Nether Poppleton, said: "We are all thrilled at their victory.

"The judges were not only impressed at how they had taken stock to correct shortcomings, but also how by adding a delivery service to a low-value product like chocolates, the group created a perceived value which was much higher."

M1 Enterprise was among seven little companies vying to win the York area final.

Runner-up was YFI, of Queen Ethelburga's College, in Thorpe Underwood, which manufactured decorative ornamental school calendars, and third place went to Queen Margaret's School, Escrick Park, York, whose PS events organising business arranged a "talk cricket" night with legendary cricket umpire Dickie Bird and Yorkshire and England hero Geoff Boycott, whose daughter is a pupil at the school.

Updated: 11:00 Thursday, April 28, 2005