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I watched the third episode of Jamie’s Ministry of Food last night in which Jamie visits a hospital in Rotheram where the doctors showed him a special bed for fat people (visit the Channel 4 site to see a picture) and explained that the NHS is struggling to cope with the problems caused by us all getting fatter. Now my wife watched it and commented on how important it is that we teach our son to cook and how to eat healthily. Whilst I agree with her, I was really watching and thinking there’s a business opportunity here! A quick search on the Internet this morning seemed to confirm that as The Times notes (my emphasis):
Fat-related illnesses are costing the NHS around Pounds £2 billion a year while at any one time an estimated third of the UK’s hospital beds are filled with overweight patients.
Now I’m sure anyone who has looked at business opportunities both on and offline will immediately be thinking of diets programmes and weight loss, but no that’s not the business opportunity that jumped out at me. You see the doctor explained that each of the “fat beds” costs £66,000. However because the NHS can’t afford to make that kind of capital investment it has to rent the beds which costs a whopping £100 per day. That’s £700 per week, or £36,500 per year.
It seems to me that this is a better business opportunity than property investing – which previous fascinated the nation – you see most Buy-To-Let landlords put in a 15-25% deposit (around £30,000) and expect to get around £7,000 per year in rental income. If instead two investors teamed up and brought a bed they could generate around £18,000 of income each – and have no mortgage payments to make. On top of that there’s a growing demand (we’re all getting fatter) and it’s recession proof.
Going one step further if you made these beds I’d expect you’d be able to make them for around £30-40,000 (assuming that there’s a healthy profit margin in the £66,000 list price). I’d expect the beds to have a usable life of at least three years so something that costs you £30,000 to make would create a cash flow of just over £100,000 spread over three years. That’s a pretty damn good return on investment.
Having said that, I hope it turns out to be a very bad business opportunity as I’d rather see the nation learn to eat healthily and the need for these beds decline.
Picture by GiLaRio F.
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This blog is about business opportunities and ideas that I spot, think of or hear about and think are useful and interesting. It is intended to provide ideas and inspriation for you to help you find the right business idea for you to then grow it into a successful business.
66k for a bed im shocked
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Seems like a very good investment if you have the money.
Very good thinking John, Never thought of it that way hmmm.
Regards
Moyo
It is rather expensive isn’t it. It seems anything being sold to government run organisations is hugely expensive.
Could possibly be that the manufacturer’s of the beds are over charging because they might have little or no competitors. Giving them the upper hand to sell them at what they like?
Quite possibly, it’s not exactly a sexy/exciting business that loads of entrepreneurs are going to rush into
I’m guessing the reason for such a high price is because these are industrial use beds, think of all the abuse these beds get, i.e. crashing along when moved etc. Also the beds have to be strong so the materials used are different and so I’m guessing the process of putting the beds together also differs. Lastly I’m only taking a wild guess but I reckon that the red tape involved in just getting your bed into the hospitals would be enough to put anyone off. Also could there possibly be a minimum numbers of beds you need before the NHS gives you a contract? Who would be in charge of maintenance for the beds? I’m sure you could think of the other things that would stop budding entrepreneurs from going into this field. Though if no of that puts you off and you have the money I’m certain you could be successful just because there probably isn’t much competition.
Absolutely, making them isn’t going to be cheap – as I said in the post they probably cost £30-40K to make. The red tape is sure to put many off (it would certainly not be my cup of tea) which helps keep competition low.