The Skinny Food Co sells low-calorie products such as ketchup, beef jerky, low-carb rice and ‘100% Pure Cookie Dough Skinny Peanut Butter’. It sells online through its website and via the likes of Morrisons, Spar, B&M, and Holland & Barrett. Wayne Starkey and James Whiting co-founded the Nottingham-based company in 2018 with £3,000. The pair were inspired by diabetic family members and wanted to provide healthier, less calorie-dense alternatives to well-known foods. The Skinny Food Co stocks more than 500 products and generated sales of £17.2m last year.
‘How we’re building a £200m business’
WAYNE STARKEY & JAMES WHITING
FOUNDERS - THE SKINNY FOOD CO
More Unemployables
Entrepreneurship is a disease…but I don’t want the cure’
This technology start-up unlocks the world of whisky. It has developed proprietary image capturing software that allows mobile phones to scan and identify any bottle of the ‘golden elixir’. The Bevvy app displays a variety of information on the scanned whisky, including an estimated valuation, tasting notes, user ratings and distillery history. Its database stores details of more than 200,000 bottles, and the app is aimed at anyone from novices to collectors and distillery owners. Headquartered on the Isle of Islay, the company was set up in 2021 by leading whisky expert Laurie Black, and entrepreneur Luke Heron, co-founder of medtech firm TestCard.
Luke Heron
Founder - Bevvy
I caught the entrepreneurial bug aged 13…I’m now running a £20m business
SoPost has built a digital sampling platform which enables over 200 brands, including Estée Lauder, L’Oréal and Unilever, to run data-driven online sampling campaigns. SoPost’s technology is available in 20 markets, utilising a global distribution network to ship samples direct to participating consumers’ homes…
Jonathan Grubin
Founder - SoPost
How we pulled off the best Dragons’ Den deal in history and exited for £12.5m
Entrepreneurs Henry de Zoete and Will Hodson made Dragons’ Den history by netting the best cash-to-equity deal in the show’s history and a year later, they sold their business, for £12.5m. Business-wise, years don’t come much better. Read their full story and more about what they have planned next here…
Henry de Zoete and Will Hodson
Co-founders - Look After My Bills
Having a family has shown me there’s more to life than business
London-based Wild manufactures and sells natural, refillable deodorant and soap on a subscription basis. Launched in 2019 by co-founders, chief executive Freddy Ward and chief marketing officer Charlie Bowes- Lyon, it aims to reduce plastic waste while creating products using natural ingredients. The company has secured a total of £7.6m in equity funding, including a […]
Freddy Ward
Founder - Wild
FRIVE: Growing a £75M Food Brand from Rock Bottom
George Taylor, founder of FRIVE, joins us to share how he went from addiction and chaos in East London… to building one of the UK’s fastest-growing healthy food brands. This isn’t just a meal prep business. It’s a company built around a much bigger mission: Fixing Britain’s relationship with food. At 23, George was at […]
George Taylor
Founder, Frive
How to launch a business during a crisis
Alexia Inge co-founded Cult Beauty with no funding, during a deep global recession. Today, they employ over 130 people and turn over £104m. With coronavirus creating such huge uncertainty, we thought we’d sit down with Alexia to hear more about how savvy entrepreneurs can find opportunities at the unlikeliest of times…
Alexia Inge
Co-founder - Cult Beauty