This franchise explores business opportunities in some distant waters

The owners of Recognition Express Southern pride themselves on their reputation, but when they got an order from the remote island of St Helena, they were flummoxed.

The French sent Napoleon Bonaparte to the isle in the Atlantic Ocean because, even now, it takes two weeks to get there, and there’s no means of a quick getaway. 

But the island’s tourism department contacted Recognition Express Southern, based in

Horndean, Portsmouth, and asked them to produce 500 branded pens and 500 keyrings.

Caroline Dinenage, who owns Recognition Express Southern with her mum Beverley, got to the bottom of the mystery order.

“It turns out that the Director of Tourism in St Helena went to the Isle of Wight Walking Festival four years ago and took home a badge that Recognition Express Southern produced. So when she wanted promotional products, we were her first port of call.”

The pens and keyrings carry the island’s Proud of St Helena (PoSH) logo.

Spokeswoman for St Helena Tourism Gemma George said: “PoSH is a local awareness campaign to enable our local residents to pass on a positive message to our visitors and the pride they feel for their island.

“We could produce promotional material ourselves but there are no companies here who provide such a professional range of corporate merchandise.

“Recognition Express were very good to work with – customer service was good and emails were answered promptly, and the art work was done effectively.”

Said Caroline: “It goes to show that you never know where the next order might come from – and that every order matters.

“The difference with this order is that it’s going to take two weeks for the merchandise to get there because there’s no airport in St Helena and the only way to deliver is by boat. No wonder Napoleon got stuck there.”

FACTS ABOUT ST HELENA

The island is one of the remotest inhabited islands in the world, 1,200 miles from the nearest land mass (Angola), and 1,800 miles from Brazil.
The only way to get there is by boat, a five-day trip from Capetown, or 14 days from the UK.
It measures 10.5 by 6.5 miles.
Jamestown (pop 884) is the only town.
The population is 5,000.
English is the island’s language.
The main crop is coffee.
Pumpkin pudding is a local delicacy.
Napoleon died there in 1821 after six years in exile. 
There are two hotels.