23. The Primal Pantry

Founders: Suzie Walker
Founded: February 2014
Website: www.primalpantry.com

While working as a nutritionist, Suzie Walker found that although her clients saw good results using the paleo diet, they struggled to find on-the-go snacks that were free of grains, refined sugars, soy, gluten or additives.

She decided to rectify this and in 2014 launched The Primal Pantry: a range of ‘clean eating’ snack bars, made with chopped fruit and nuts, which prides itself on never using bulking agents, flavourings, preservatives or additives.

After promoting the three initial flavours on social media and receiving no less than 20,000 orders within two weeks, Walker knew she was on to something.

Today, the range has expanded to five flavours and three high protein bars, selling through Ocado, Waitrose, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Holland & Barrett, Planet Organic, and Wholefoods in the UK and through international distributors to 28 countries worldwide. In 2016, The Primal Pantry was a finalist for the Export Business of the Year and Women in Business awards at the Startups Awards.

Backed by just under £1m in investment from two rounds of private funding, the brand has plenty of products in the pipeline for 2017 including a new high protein product, the ‘Cocoa Brownie’.

As it continues to broaden its range, attracting not just paleo-followers and clean eating converts but sports enthusiasts, free-from adopters and healthy snackers, The Primal Pantry is expecting to hit an impressive £6.5m in revenue this year.