Business Ventures
The Food Ferry was co-founded by me in 1990. Together with my team, I pioneered grocery home-shopping as it is now known from a small warehouse in Battersea, leading it from being the first dedicated grocery home-shopping company in UK to being the first online grocery site in UK in 1996 and a multi-award-winning innovative new e-commerce business. Stocking over 3000 lines, The Food Ferry was a leader in its field. I was a regular speaker at business conferences in UK and in Europe, a guest speaker at government trade forums, a visiting lecturer at universities and author of articles (and subject of several business reports and books) setting out how grocery home-shopping works. During the 15 years of my leadership, the company was awarded over a dozen national business honours including Small Business of the Year, Entrepreneurs of the Future, Retail Services, Technology Initiative and Customer Care Awards. In 1990 there was no market in the UK for grocery home-shopping. With my team, we created, launched and developed that market. It is now, in 2022, worth £30bn of the total £205bn UK grocery market.
Greenled Light was co-founded by me in 2006, becoming the Greenled Group in 2010. Together with my team, I pioneered commercial LED lighting installations across the UK, developing new state-of-the-art lighting systems, creating new business economic models and leading the company from being one of the innovators of low-energy lighting to being the first to develop institutionally-backed dedicated capital facilities to help fund large-scale lighting programmes. Successful installation sites include Warwick University, Liverpool Museum, the Building Research Establishment (BRE), The Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT), WH Smith and Highgrove. I was co-opted onto the board of the UK Lighting Association and was instrumental in persuading the government to introduce legislation phasing out old-style lighting and facilitating LED lighting into commercial buildings. The UK commercial market for LEDs was nil in 2006. At Greenled we developed it. In 2022, it is worth around £3bn.
TruckTel was founded in 2014. As one of the original founders, I helped pioneer the development of secure freight bays, with initial launches at sites in Amsterdam Schiphol and Poland. The bays are designed to house freight-laden trucks in a safe haven when the driver reaches his Tachograph driving hours limit and has to stop. This allows the driver to sleep somewhere other than his cab (thereby allowing secure sleep) and also ensures the truck itself is secure and unable to be tampered with by potential criminals or stowaways. This attracts compelling savings on theft and insurance premiums. The company (now called Freightsafe Ltd) currently has a network of 35 – 40 secure bays built or under construction in Spain, Germany and Sweden. There was no market when the company started in 2014. The Freightsafe team is creating and building that market now.
Stroudco CIC was founded in 2008. Following some internal changes, I was part of a new management team that took it on in 2019 with the aim of revamping it. The business grew sharply and moved to new premises in early 2020 when the effects of the pandemic pushed order levels even higher. Originally marketed as “Stroud’s local online grocer”, the business is now much more than that. Our team has been instrumental in underlining the wider benefits to the “local food for local people” message. It is about improving biodiversity: offering food to local people from local suppliers who support healthy soil farming techniques, regenerative agricultural practices, reduced packaging and mileage and take measures to tackle climate change through the way they produce and deliver food. This feeds through to making the local economy more resilient by supporting local suppliers, underpinning local markets and feeding local consumers. I am driving this model forward.
Growing Business
I love start-ups, small to medium sized burgeoning businesses, establishing innovative new markets and growing from niche into mainstream. I have a track record of turning ideas into reality and bringing hands-on experience and attention to detail to projects. I have secured funding for all businesses I have been involved in from angels, VCs, research grants, foundations, philanthropy and tax-driven sources, often encouraging later rounds of finance from early investors. This is about building the investment case and envisioning brand positioning, building teams and establishing connections in order to secure buy-in and on-going support.
I am especially interested in creating legacy markets and working with businesses that aim to resolve current problems, challenging the status quo to create long-term good.
BLOGS
QAVS Award 2022
Stroud District Action on Plastic
7 June 2022
James Millar 