THE tea market has “gone through the roof”, says Lancashire Tea founder and boss Paul Needham, and his revived trade has exceeded all predictions.

This is all the more gratifying as his firm survived near-collapse last November by going into administration after severe cashflow problems.

Coming out of administration last December and now backed by developer Greshams, the Newton-le-Willows company is in a market where demand is out- stripping supply.

“We’ve now got the financial support for expansion and do not have a cashflow problem, which frees funds for growth,” said Mr Needham, who employs eight staff. “Prior to our troubles last year, we sold 36,000 boxes of tea a month. Now it’s 55,000 boxes and we expect to sell 105,000 within about four weeks.”

Lancashire Tea shows how small businesses, seen as post-recession hopes, can fall foul of banking decisions out of their control, which bigger rivals can survive. “The tea trade should be recession-proof. If people don’t go out, they stay in and drink tea,” said Mr Needham.

“People criticise supermarkets for not being supportive, but they’ve been fantastic and very loyal to us.

“Our existing clients like Tesco, Morrison’s, Asda and Home Bargains came back. I didn’t go begging for their return.”

Lancashire Tea delivers to a wide range of businesses, and is inevitably compared to the much bigger Yorkshire Tea.

The latter, taken over by Betty’s of Harrogate, went from being a regional favourite to an 8% UK market share.

Can Lancashire Tea follow such success?