Two young entrepreneurs from a family-run alternative health business have launched the firm's first franchise outside the West Midlands.

Zen, which has branches in Brindleyplace, Moseley and Selly Oak, was founded in 1992 by retailer Sylvia Chandler who had developed the idea from a hobby.

However, the firm's development has now been taken over by her daughters, 23-year-old Kate and 18-year-old Megan, who plan to extend the brand across the country.

Kate joined the family business as purchaser during her final year of a Classics degree and Megan left Edgbaston High School at 16 to become Zen's marketing and administrative manager.

Both women, who have been working for Zen since they were in their teens, also manage the Brindleyplace and Moseley stores.

Kate said: "The brand has great potential and we're already getting great feedback from customers of the London franchise.

"We benefit from stocking such a wide range of alternative therapies and many people have labelled us the ' spiritual supermarket'.

"Expansion has happened at an incredible pace - faster than we could have predicted."

Another London branch is planned within the next few months and negotiations have begun to export the franchise into Spain.

"I'm so proud of them," Ms Chandler said. "They have far more business sense than I ever had.

"It's not just about money to us, it's a great opportunity to help people."

Ms Chandler discovered the market potential for alternative and complementary health whilst running the Carnation Street florist in Birmingham's Corporation Street.

"All my life I have been using herbs and aromatherapy," she said.

"I would often lend books on the subject to friends and they would not return them. I had to replace one book so many times, I realised I could turn it into a business."

Ms Chandler, founded the alternative health shop Serenity next door, but seized the opportunity to launch Zen after an invitation from Brindleyplace.

" I had been supplying Brindleyplace with flowers and plants from Carnation Street and Argent asked if I would like to open a florist in the development."

"Brindleyplace was still new and I was concerned that it might not have the customer numbers to sell perishable goods.

"So I combined my two businesses and founded Zen and the Art of Flower Arranging." The shop quickly became known as just Zen and increasingly moved away from flower-arranging and towards alternative therapies.

In 1995 Ms Chandler sold Serenity and Carnation Street and, four years later, founded a second Zen store and alternative health centre in Moseley.

It was here the company pioneered the controversial, but commercially successful, urine therapy - the practice of drinking one's own urine, based on ancient Indian practices.

The company appeals to a wide customer base and has also attracted its fair share of celebrities including Westlife, Boy George, Simon Cowell and the Spice Girls.

"More than 25 per cent of the British population now use some form of alternative therapy in the lives," Ms Chandler said.

"There is a massive market out there."