Sir Richard Branson names Britain’s “hottest” new food businesses

The UK’s “hottest” new food businesses were named today by Sir Richard Branson at this year’s Foodpreneur Festival; the annual Virgin StartUp initiative which looks to help the country’s up-and-coming food start-ups scale up.

Judged by Ella’s Kitchen founder Paul Lindley, Appear Here founder and Young Gun Ross Bailey, and Urban Food Fest founder Jessica Tucker, the Retail winners included natural nut butter start-up Pip & Nut; founded by Startups’ blogger Pippa Murray (pictured), and Startups 100-listed marshmallow business Mallow and Marsh.

Unveiled at the Vinyl Factory in Soho hosted by Jimmy’s Iced Coffee co-founder Jim Cregan, each retail winner gets the opportunity to fly over to the US to meet buyers at the Target Corporation which intends to trial up to four new products in its American stores.

Budding street food businesses Humpit Hummus and CLAW Food were also crowned winners in the Street Food category. Humpit has won a three month stall spot at the Urban Food Fest in Shoreditch while CLAW will receive a rent-free, week-long pop up at Old Street station via Appear Here.

The full list of winners are as follows:

Retail

• Cauli Rice – only long-life ready to eat version of ‘cauliflower rice’
• Double Dutch – range of premium soft drinks created by Dutch twins Raissa and Joyce de Haas
• Harry Brompton’s London Ice Tea – world’s first premium alcoholic ice tea
• Mallow and Marsh – alternative confectionery brand “putting good marshmallows on the map”
• Pip & Nut –  all-natural nut brand brand with no palm oil or refined sugars

Street Food

• Humpit Hummus – hummus and pitta bar that serves a vegan selection of Mediterranean inspired foods
• CLAW Food – one of the only British seafood pop-ups to focus on crab

Branson commented:

“The UK is living through a golden age of entrepreneurship and British foodie start-ups are at the heart of it.

“This year’s Foodpreneur finalists showed great innovation and meeting the great minds and talented chefs behind each idea has been inspiring. The standard of entries was very high but the winners really stood out for their passion and pioneering businesses.”