After working in the food industry for several years, friends Richard Cooke and Emerson Mendes, took ‘the leap of faith’ by starting their own business after Covid-19 paused their place of work.

Richard,47, from Whitely Bay and Emerson,48, originally from Rio, but has lived in the North East for 16 years, talked about opening their own business for a while and Covid gave them the opportunity.

They are now operating Vallum Farm, on Military Road, East Wallhouses.

The pair have been friends since they first started working together at St. James Park, Newcastle United Football Club.

Since then, the pair have claimed that their friendship grew stronger based around their shared passion for tasting food,sport and family.

Mr Cooke said: “We were both off from work and we thought that the business would work well with COVID.”

“We thought that we would be able to have the business and be ok through the pandemic since it would be delivering meals to those who could not get out.”

To order the meal service, customers must go on the website and choose between three options: 10 meals,15 meals or 20 meals to then continue to a menu to choose what they want in their delivery. The company delivers twice a week which are normally on Tuesday and Fridays.

The business has been open for a month and although it has been a little slow, Richard claims that it has had lots of interest especially on social media.

Richard said: “ So far, the customers are mostly personal trainers and gyms. We have found that a lot of personal trainers have really hyped up our products

and have been telling everyone.

“We have had some amazing reviews from all our customers and we would just like to say a big thank you to all of them.”

To order your meal delivery from Richard and Emerson go to https://onpointnutrition.co.uk/