A trio of industry leaders have joined forces to set up a £250,000 investment and mentoring programme to support promising new food and drinks brands get off the ground.
Plum Baby co-founder Paddy Willis, Lily’s Kitchen commercial director Simon Lacey and Rob Ward, who built one of the largest fruit businesses in the UK supplying national supermarkets, this week launched the Grocery Accelerator – a scheme that will award five young and original businesses with high growth potential £50,000 each.
The initiative, based on a model used in the United States for web start-ups, will also provide coaching in areas such as branding, packaging, manufacturing, logistics, food technology and legal and financial planning, alongside access to supermarket buyers.
“This is about enabling people with talent and bright ideas to have the funds to get going,” Ward told The Grocer. “We’re trying to help brands avoid expensive mistakes and give them both the support they need and fast-track their access to new customers. There’s a substantial increase in success rates with accelerator programmes, which are growing rapidly around the world. It’s no wonder when statistics for not surviving year two are as high as 92%.”
The competition, which is running on www.groceryaccelerator.co.uk, will close once 20 ‘exciting’ entries have been submitted. Five winners will then be chosen with each receiving funding in March.
The successful candidates will also receive a two-day business boot camp in London where they’ll learn how to successfully grow their business, a three day trip to New York attending the world’s largest specialty food and drink trade show, monthly networking opportunities in the UK and attend a workshop that provides coaching on how to win new business, including introductions to help brands access new markets are also included in the package.
Ocado and BrandOpus are among the fund partners that will invest up to £50k for 12.5% equity under SEIS – Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (a tax saving vehicle for those investing in start-ups)
Ward described the business funding model as an ‘industry first’ for the UK food sector.
“At the end of the process if the brands get invested in we get a win fee on that investment,” he said. “It’s in our interest for them do really well.”
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