It’s affordable, ethically-sourced, nutritious, and by all accounts tasty fast food. No wonder that Pod is expanding its number of stores. Started back in 2005, a new site was launched in the spring, another will arrive in November, and over a dozen more are planned in the long term. Last year’s turnover hit £1.5m, while this year’s prediction is £2m.

Yet Pod nearly never was. Founder Tim Hall explains the idea came to him following a realisation he had after a health scare. ‘It started partly after a personal health scare I had 3 years ago. The consultant had advised me to eat healthily, which is pretty hard to do in The City.’ Each dish is clearly marked on the menu - low-fat, vegetarian, vegan, wheat-free, dairy-free or gluten-free, while Hall has ensured that wasted food and packaging is (mostly) composted down, the wood used in building the restaurants is coppiced, the plastic furniture is recycled, and electricity is supplied by Ecotricity. The fact that people enjoy the dining experience is thanks to a late-arriving US-trend. ‘The idea is that it’s healthy food combined in the “fast casual dining” sector. I was in the US and it was blowing up five years ago. I believed it would happen here, and it did’, says Hall.

Before the launch of the first restaurant, Hall set up a retail business called Thin Red Line, and also spent some time as CEO at automotive consulting business Burbank. Yet he says personal reasons again took him away from the environmentally damaging practice of importing cars to the UK - something that Hall wanted to leave behind. ‘I always wanted to combine retail with the ethical stance, so it was partly personal and partly ethical.’

Getting together on launch with Kate Skerritt, former partner at Prêt a Manger, and a strong team of non executive directors, Pod received £500,000 pre equity and £150,000 from the government’s small firms loan guarantee scheme. A later round of £1.5m from existing shareholders and customers (it doesn’t hurt being in The City, he admits), should help Pod through a storm damaging the sails of many of its immediate City neighbours.