A STUDENT business looking to break into the juice market won £5,000 in a competition to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Press Business Awards.

Alpha Juices, run by George MacGill, a philosophy student at the University of York, was named the winner of the Business Booster competition during the evening.

The competition was run by The Press and Business Support York and North Yorkshire (BSYNY), with the grant of £5,000 for first place awarded from its Whyte Knight Fund.

Ahead of the Business Awards, young businesses in York were invited to pitch for the competition, showcasing the entrepreneurial spirit behind the venture, and detail how £5,000 would make a difference and boost the business.

Entries from a variety of young businesses were submitted, but it was Alpha Juices that was selected as the judges favourite.

The business currently produces a range of two juices, made from a new technique of juicing which puts fruit and vegetable juice under extreme pressures to extend shelf life without the need for added preservatives.

Alpha’s juices are currently stocked in Nisa stores on campus at the University of York, and in a number of independent shops around York.

Explaining the story behind the business, Mr MacGill said: “I always had a passion for entrepreneurship, but I was in my second year at uni.

“Like most students I drank too much vodka and ate too much pizza. My health and finances were ruined. I wasn’t consuming any fruit or vegetables, so I started juicing them. My health improved massively, the list of benefits was endless.

“A lot of students were having similar issues with getting fruit and veg into their diets, so I started selling my juice to them.

“We could have hired a unit in town to run the business from but being a student we couldn’t afford the overheads. Also when we made juices they only last three to four days max. We had the option of going down the preservatives route, like many of the mainstream juice companies on the market, but that undermined the whole vision for the business.”

Mr MacGill came across HPP (high-pressure processing), which involves using pressure the equivalent to five times that of the deepest ocean in the world, which gives the juice a shelf life of 30 to 40 days.

Mr MacGill said: “We found someone who could do this for us off-site and set up in production.

“We approached the commercial director at the university. He liked the idea and said we could stock it in the Nisa stores on campus, and were on the shelves for the start of freshers term this year.

“We found out we were the first student business in the UK to do a retail deal like this in an on-campus supermarket. It went really well, and we’ve expanded to other independent retailers in York.”

Mr MacGill said Alpha will use the prize money to invest in refrigerated storage options and to create a new website and marketing.

The judges said: “It is great to see so many unusual, interesting and innovative business ideas. It was a tough task picking an outright winner and the outcome was very close; however, we hope everyone will be successful and we thank all the applicants for taking part.”

Alongside the £5,000 cash prize, BSYNY, which offers business support services, also awarded a second-place prize of a place on its Essential Skills for Small Business Growth programme, worth £595, and a third-place prize of three months ‘Advantage’ mentoring, worth £300.

Second place was awarded to Bright Ethics, a new business set up to run an accreditation scheme to monitor ethics in business, while third place went to homemade dog treat company Top Collar.