Two ex-soldiers have turned their former homesickness for British food into a multi-million pound York-based business.

Equal share-owners Simon Aldrich and Richard Finch, both aged 30, are set to be millionaires by the year end with their website, expatshopping.com, which can turn the Aah, Bisto! dreams of 13.5 million Britons abroad into reality within three days.

The pair, plus an investor who lives in Harrogate, sunk £250,000 into a fully-automated 6,000 sq ft secure warehouse on the Osbaldwick Link industrial estate, handling 1,500 British brands ranging from Twinings tea to Gillette razor blades.

Now, with Government backing, they are likely to clear their investment debt within the first four months and have a turnover of £7.8 million by next April.

Within the first 48 hours of "going live" there were 780 hits on the website, including enthusiastic responses from 86 British high commissions.

Parcel Force Worldwide, the UK's largest carrier, has agreed to deliver the estimated 52,000 orders the website will generate in a year, a huge addition to the 720,000 it already handles.

For the moment the carrier will organise a special route to its Leeds distribution centre, but depending on the success of the venture may have to expand its York operation.

Meanwhile Richard, the managing director, who lives in Helperby, and Simon, the marketing director, who lives near Malton, have been recruiting.

Simon said: "We have four staff, including ourselves, and have sorted out a further eight packers. On top of that we will employ three people who will have a roving brief to tag on to trade missions, where they will hand out brochures and spread the good news among the thousands of British business ex-pats."

Richard and Simon both served in the Royal Military Police and later for a port development company on assignments all over the world.

Simon was in Bangladesh for 11 weeks and, knowing that Richard was heading there, too, asked him to bring him a list of British goods he craved. "He brought everything but the Colman's mustard, and I went ballistic.

"After I calmed down we thought about why I had reacted that way and one marketable idea led to another."

On their return home they studied the feasibility of a website and with cash backing set up an on-line ordering system.

Richard said: "We can't believe the enthusiasm of the response so far. One ex-pat in Slovakia suggested ten items he wanted to see, including tights for his wife, and one man in the Japanese embassy said he would "make it his life's work" to ensure that our 7,000 ex-pats out there know about us!"

Will they float on the stock exchange? "Don't ask," said Simon. "Given the problems dot.coms are experiencing right now, it may be worth proving first that we aren't just puff, but real profits."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.