DEBRANNIES CATERING

DEBRANNIES CATERING

Hanna Sintim set up Debrannies to provide all kinds of catering including for community events such as public meetings, tea dances for the over 50s and private parties. She has also started a Community Café at a local Church and runs the Coffee Shop at a health centre. She is a trained, qualified and experienced chef and has worked as Head Pastry Chef at Kensington Place, west London.

She started her journey to setting up her business with a course provided by the Portobello Business Centre. This was a four day course that took participants through all aspects of business with presentations from experts in tax and accounting. The business plan was the most useful thing for Hanna while starting off. Her Business Adviser, Maria Stammers, helped her by looking through her books and coming to observe her at work in her catering business. Hanna's
adviser gave her constructive feedback on how she could improve her business to make it more attractive to customers.

One area that is a struggle for her is finance. She says that she has had difficulty in identifying the benefits that she is entitled to as a self-employed person with her own business. What would have made a difference to her experience is being clear about what benefits are available to her and exactly what loan finance is available to support her business. She describes her position at the moment as 'being in a
grey area'.

For the future, Hanna has great plans for Debrannies including setting up a patisserie. She wants to further establish the business and to increase the number of catering contracts.

Hanna feels that the best thing about starting her own business is making her own decisions and being able to do what she likes to do. Although it is a struggle, it is a very exciting time for her.
Debrannies: Event Catering and Patisserie Chef
07961 817 150