Plant-based chewing gum brand attracts £750k investment

If you’re a Dragon’s Den devotee, then you might remember Nuud. The plant-based and plastic free chewing gum brand pitched on the show earlier this year, but founder Keir Carnie failed to receive any offers for the £50,000 he was asking for.

Since then however, the brand has gone from strength to strength, and it has now attracted a £750,000 investment led by Candy Kittens founders Jamie Laing and Ed Williams.

What is Nuud?

You’ve probably never thought too much about chewing gum, but it’s a big problem for the planet.

Chewing gum contains as much plastic as a drinking straw, and can take up to 1,000 years to decompose. As most people know, it’s also the scourge of pavements up and down the UK – with Keep Britain Tidy estimating that over 95% of the nation’s pavements have chewing gum stuck to them.

Nuud changes all that. It’s made from sustainably harvested chewy tree sap which means it’s plastic free, plant-based and fully biodegradable.

In short, the message is simple – “Chew plants, not plastic” and this gamechanging ethos is rapidly disrupting the traditional chewing gum industry.

It’s all the brainchild of 33-year-old Keir Carnie, who in 2019 gambled his life savings on a dream.

Two years later, he’s built a thriving business that’s stocked in nationwide retailers Waitrose, Morrisons, and the Co-Op.

Where has the investment come from?

The £750,000 investment in Nuud is the first made by Tuckshop London, a new investment company started by the founders of Startups 100 alumni Candy Kittens in conjunction with long-standing industry partner Katjes International.

Commenting on their new venture, Candy Kittens co-founder Jamie Laing said:

“We’ve learnt a lot in the last 10 years, and are proud to offer a helping hand to young brands on a mission to disrupt the ugly incumbents dominating this old fashioned industry”.

And we can expect more investments, with the dynamic duo determined to support the next generation of rebellious food and drink entrepreneurs.

We’ll leave the final word to a delighted Keir, who said that “a Kitten is better than a Dragon any day” and was confident that “this partnership will accelerate the growth of the business and our ability to solve the plastic gum problem for good”.