Mum can finally chill after pair scoop deal with store

BEST friends Will Hammersley and Chris Hannaway have long dreamt of running a frozen yoghurt empire.

But when manufacturing started in one mother's kitchen, it met a frosty reception.

Despite the humble beginnings, the entrepreneurial pair, who met at Ripon Grammar School aged 11, are set to have their Arctic Farm frozen yoghurt stocked on the shelves of one of Britain's biggest supermarkets - in time for Mother's Day.

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Will, 20, says it will be something of a sweetener for his mother putting up with the years of sticky pots and pans.

He said: "She has already been incredibly supportive and this is a great way to say thank you – it can't have been easy at times.

"Chris and I bought an ice cream machine a few years ago and put it in the kitchen.

"It was very tasty, but we used to make a huge mess – there would be yoghurt pots and fruit peels everywhere.

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"My mother would go off to work and we would be there making it all day before rushing out to sell it.

"We would do our best to get it clean but when she came home, she would not be very impressed.

"She didn't mind to start with, but as the business got too chaotic with us both working 24 hours a day, we realised we probably had to move it out.

"We wrote to several manufactures and they liked the idea and it started from there, it has been incredible how the business has taken off."

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The pair who are both in their final year at Bath University set up the frozen yoghurt business when they were just 18, but it is already being stocked at Harrods and will now go on the shelves at Sainsbury's.

It is a remarkable rise to fame, less than a decade after they decided to merge their T-shirt and sweet selling businesses in the playground at Ripon Grammar.

Chris, 20, said: "At school we started off as rivals, Will sold sweets in the playground and I sold T-shirts.

"But we hit it off as friends straight away and always talked about setting up a business together. We used to busk in the streets around Ripon Cathedral together with me playing the trumpet and Will collecting money when we were both really young.

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"Will moved down South when he was 14 but we always stayed in touch. We would meet up in London on the weekends and talk about money-making schemes."

The pair launched their frozen yoghurt business in their first year at Bath University when they ended up in the same halls of residence.

Chris said: "We were doing nothing, just sitting around eating beans and watching television, so we tried to launch a T-shirt business.

"We shipped in hundreds from America to sell around the university but nobody wanted one, we still have boxes of them left.

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"Then we started making frozen yoghurt, just for our friends at first but they all said it was so good the business kept going from there. It is amazing how quickly it has grown but our aim is to get it stocked in every freezer in Britain."

In 2008, they moved manufacturing to Will's mother's house and started towing around a Victorian handcart on the streets of Bath, handing out free samples to spread their name.

Last summer they were signed up by a manufacturer based in High Wycombe, near London, and in September 2009, Harrods became the first business to stock their yoghurt.

Children want best for their parents

Parents are used to the eye-rolling and sighing thrown at them by their teenage sons and daughters but it seems that underneath all that angst, most young people just want the best for their family.

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Researchers at the University of Leeds are studying the lives and thoughts of 400 ordinary people and their latest findings show that, contrary to popular belief, teenagers really do appreciate their mother and father and want them to be happy in the future.

Nikki, 14, said: "Mum when she gets to 50, she wants to become a mad artist in the country with her pink hair. I hope she can do that."

Ashley, 14, said: "If I if I ever got rich I would always want to buy them a nice car or a house or whatever to repay them for what they've done."

Project lead researcher Sarah Baker said that many of the children who took part clearly had the best interests of their parents in mind. She added: "They hope that their mum and dad will have an enjoyable and relaxing life, perhaps moving to the countryside or overseas.

"They also want their parents to work less and to have a healthy old age – and they can see themselves contributing to support their parents in the future."

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