Baby booming

The Real Baby Milk community interest company was set up by Arwen Folkes to help support new mums and promote breastfeeding as an alternative to using formula milk. As well as advice and information it provides training to enable volunteers to become part of its peer support network and promotes the 700-plus local breastfeeding initiatives via its website.

First steps

Folkes started out with baby steps. She registered her online domain name for £30 and received a £1,500 Community Champions grant in November 2005. She launched the pilot scheme in Cornwall in May 2006, and Real Baby Milk became a community interest company (CIC) that October.

The first aim of the company was to produce a printed colour breastfeeding guide. Then, to grow the company, Folkes put in a bid for half a million pounds of lottery money. It got through to the final stages but missed out.

'It was disappointing, but with hindsight, it was the best thing that could have happened. It meant that the company had to readdress its sources of income,' says Folkes.

Growth spurt

Folkes then focused on the Real Baby Milk peer support programme, which trains women to teach new mums how to breastfeed. She invested heavily in developing best practice and, helped along by intensive networking, word of the programme spread in Cornwall and Real Baby Milk was able to secure £36,000 from the Department of Health for further development.

Today, it is the only provider of accredited peer support training in Cornwall. Volunteers can gain three credits at level 2 with the Open College Network. Once trained, volunteers can become part of the company's peer support network.

At the same time the company started to develop its retail arm. 'We made a 12-minute instructional film which demonstrates correct positioning while feeding, it features real mum's and their babies. This was priced at £6 and we sold 3,000 copie - it took the company national,' says Folkes.

Real Baby Milk has an online shop that sells books, DVDs, feeding cupsand T-shirts. Folkes says its retail arm is going from 'strength to strength' with plans to expand its range.

Folks credits Real Baby Milk's 532 per cent growth to the passionate team who are avid networkers and always willing to work in partnerships.

'We listen and are in constant dialogue with our stakeholders,' says Folks.

She also points to Real Baby Milk's 150 active volunteers, who work two to three hours per week, create value for the company calculated at £96,000 per year. The company spends £2,000 a year reviewing its social impact and Folkes believes that having the CIC structure has helped the brand by giving it 'instant trustworthiness'.

Today Real Baby Milk's £85,000 turnover is 75 per cent made up of contracts, 15 per cent retail sales and 10 per cent grants.

Looking to the future

Folkes is looking to expand Real Baby Milk outside of Cornwall. Using a branch model, she intends to recruit locally and support the set-up of programmes that will do their own accredited training.

As for advice to other new businesses experiencing rapid growth Folkes says: 'The learning curve will be steep,' adding that she is currently pursuing further studies in business management.

'We need to accept that we will make mistakes, to be realistic and to monitor our growth and impact.'

realbabymilk.org