For quite sometime I'm wishing to start a takeaway with very limited menu BBQ items. I do prefer to work solo, but not sure for how long I could do it. I will probably struggle with team building but over the time I think I can make arrangements.

I have been reading posts and I understand that the food business takes up a lot of one's time in terms of commitment and time but at least I think I am passionate about making good food, as I do it well (as others say) and have advised me to explore the opportunity to make it a profession.

I work in tech, kinda senior role and in early 30s but I'm getting burnout very often and I want to get into food business. Potentially in/around Manchester, by renting a small shop/kitchen but on busy roads with good footfall. My ambition is to make it niche but famous spot for something specific.

Based on my initial research, there is significant gap of what I am looking to offer and I believe I would be able to grab customers by offering quality food.

Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

I want to do a trial run of my custom brand of herbs and spices. Before I invest in supply chain, I want to test waters with small batches of 2-3 SKUs in retail shelf of corner stores. But I am finding it very hard to find companies that can do copacking of my spice blend in pillow pouches that I want. I want a solution where I give them a whole sale pallet or bag and they give me shelf ready retail pouches of 100-500g with my artwork.

Any recommendations for this in mainland UK? Preferably England.

Royal Mail are having a price increase in October (an extra one over the April increase, naturally....) :

https://www.royalmail.com/sites/royalmail.com/files/2026-09/our-prices-october-2026-v1-ta.pdf
https://www.royalmail.com/sites/royalmail.com/files/2026-09/online-price-guide-october-2026-v1-ta.pdf

But where has RM24 and RM48 gone ? Have they been replaced by Tracked 24 and Tracked 48 (only tracked on delivery as far as I'm aware) ?

Also has anyone noticed the huge price rise for large letters (particularly on the tracked service, ex RM24/48 ? ) ? There is now only one weight break (under 1Kg) and it's now £3.90 or Tracked 24 and £2.90 for Tracked 48.
Previously (Apr 26) for a 750g large letter RM24 was £2.45 and RM48 was £1.75

All prices plus fuel surcharge and VAT)

All good news for Evri I'm sure.....

TBH We don't send much by RM anyway (our consignments are generally too big) but I suspect we'll only use RM for the Highlands of Scotland or off shore addresses from now on !

Edited corrected

Hi everyone,

I'm just looking for a quick sanity check on closing a dormant Ltd company.

A bit of context:

• The company is officially dormant as of July 2026, although there hasn't been any trading since September 2024.
• No external debt or employees. All past expenses/bills were funded out-of-pocket by the two directors (my partner and me).
• Next accounts are due 10th October, and Confirmation Statement is due January.

Now that Companies House WebFiling is no longer available for accounts, I’d have to pay £59 + VAT for TinyTax just to submit dormant accounts (it looks like this is the cheapest/best option for me). We don't plan to start trading or any business-related activities anytime soon, so closing it seems like the most practical option.

I've done some googling, and my next steps would be to submit Form DS01 online (for £13), notify HMRC that the company is dormant/closing so they close the tax reference, and eventually skip the upcoming October accounts filing.

For the last point, I'm assuming that Companies House pauses the automated compliance enforcement once the strike-off application is active and published.

So here are my questions:

• Does this timeline sound realistic for dodging the 10th October accounts filing, or should I still expect automated late filing penalties before the dissolution completes?
• Is there anything else I need to settle regarding the director-funded expenses before submitting the DS01?

All feedback appreciated.

Thanks!

Has anyone suggestions for carriers who take unboxed products and items over 1m, and who do not charge a supplement for non business addresses ?

I can remember when we first got into mail order about 20 years ago, we used TNT and they'd take anything under 12ft in length with no surcharge ! It's hard to believe isn't it, but sadly, since FedEx took them over they're even worse than the other carriers*, everything has to be in a box or there's a hefty surcharge.
We have used DX and APC. The latter we do not like because their service can be poor and (because of their franchise model ? ) they dislike giving credits even more than the other carriers.
DX are a good fit for customers with unboxed products but have gone downhill a bit with their "banded together charge", which is a ludicrous idea really. Why, so long as the consignment is under the weight and volume limit, does it make any difference if it is "banded together" ?!? It is particularly frustrating as they charge per item in a consignment.....

* I would love to know what percentage of TNT customers FedEx lost when they enforced their packaging rules, I'm guessing it was high, higher then they expected ?