Robbie, seven, goes to work on egg round

Mar 4 2009 By Alastair Gilmour, The Journal

LIKE policemen, entrepreneurs are getting younger, as Alastair Gilmour discovers.

RECESSION, economic downturn and credit squeeze mean absolutely nothing when you’re seven-and-three-quarters.

And, rightly so – there’s plenty of time to absorb the world’s fiscal misfortunes – but right now Robbie Binks is laying the foundations for a life as an entrepreneur.

Robbie, whose parents Tony and Monica run the award-winning Barrasford Arms gastropub in Barrasford, Northumberland, is an egg producer.

At the moment he’s an egg producer on a modest scale, but he can work out the difference between incomings and outgoings – the remainder being profit.

And, when he reveals that "money is my game", there’s a sense that the North East business community will hear an awful lot more from the St Mary’s First School, Hexham, youngster.

"He saved up his birthday money and tooth fairy money to buy a chicken coop," says Tony, who won The Journal Taste prize at the recent Gourmet Society North East Restaurant Awards for his insistence on sourcing local ingredients.

"He even took the teeth round the bar to show to customers. Everybody knew what he was saving for."

Robbie then bought a dozen hens from a local free-range egg producer – striking a bargain at 50p each – after they had passed their commercial production prime.

He started walking round the village, knocking on doors until he’d built up a regular round.