According to British news reports, a 12-year-old student in England was recently suspended after being caught peddling illegal substances to classmates at his school. His business was apparently highly profitable, as his customers had developed an addiction for the stuff he was selling.

Drugs?

Nope. Crisps…better known as “potato chips” in the U.S.

Seems that the school had outlawed “crisps” as being too unhealthy. Our intrepid young entrepreneur saw a market niche that wasn't being filled, so he filled it. And at quite a profit, reportedly up to the equivalent of about $24 a day.

This wasn't the first such instance of junk food smuggling in English schools, where a healthy eating drive prompted by celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has pitted administrators against students, and sometimes even parents (in one notorious instance, parents were caught passing McDonald's burgers and fries to their children over the schoolyard fence in defiance of a ban on fast food products on school grounds).

Several other schools have reported incidents of in-house black markets for sweets, soda, chips and other banned substances, sometimes by organized groups of students. In turn, some schools have begun inspecting lunchboxes for banned items, leading some kids to label them the “mealtime Gestapo.”

On the bright side, the country seems to be nurturing a generation of entrepreneurs who perhaps will be helping the UK drive its economic growth in about 10 to 15 years…