A food entrepreneur has smashed her £200,000 crowdfunding target in a matter of days for a rice replacement product.
Cauli Rice, which is made using cauliflower, has 75% less calories than ordinary white rice and is the brain child of former Unilever brand manager Gem Misa.
The product is now overfunding on the Crowdcube platform and has currently raised close to £420,000 from 264 investors – the largest of which has put in £49k – for an 11.6% equity stake in the business.
Cauli Rice has already raised £495,000 in a previous funding round on Crowdcube back in September, with the money being used to help set up the product for large scale production and to build a multichannel strategy.
Full production is set to start in late April, with launches to follow in Holland & Barrett, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose in May and June. Sales are projected to reach £1.4m in the first year following the product hitting the shelves.
“We believe that we have a product that is an absolute game changer in the diet and weight loss market,” Misa said.
“Crowdfunding has really helped us get a real innovation into the market. Retailers have been very receptive to having a low calorie rice replacement to offer their more health conscious consumer. And the response from our crowdfunding investors seems to confirm this because we raised more than £300,000 in our first 3 days.”
The second round of funding will support bigger plans developed around Cauli Rice based on increased interest in the product, she added. Cash will be spent on the building of a fully automatic production line and a bigger marketing plan.
Misa has 14 years’ experience in building and marketing fmcg brands, with eight years at Unilever as a regional brand manager in Asia and Africa before working on one of the company’s biggest brands as a global brand manager.
She left to start her own natural salad dressing food brand, Righteous, raising £225,000 from two separate Crowdcube rounds to fund the venture. Within four years Righteous had products listed in more than 1,000 UK supermarkets, including Tesco, Waitrose, Sainsbury’s, Ocado, Whole Foods Market and Booths, and in US retailers such as Costco and Albertsons.
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