For the second year running Virgin StartUp presents Foodpreneur a event food and drinks business from street food, retail. There’s a great list of speakers on the panel this year. Last year’s Foodpreneur finalist, David Frank, Charlie Thuillier, The Meringue Girls, Nak’d and TREK bars founder, Primrose Bakery, Wahaca, Urban Food Fest.
9:15am – Panel Session 1: Production
Speakers:
Ben Mason – Founder, Masons Beans (2014 Finalist)
David Franks – Founder, Glacia (Food Consulting)
Charlie Thuillier – Founder, Oppo Ice Cream
10:00am – Panel Session 2: Branding
Speakers:
Alex Hoffler and Stacey O’Gorman – Founders, The Meringue Girls
Jamie Combs – Founder, Natural Balance Foods (Nakd and TREK Bars)
Martha Swift – Founder, Primrose Bakery
10:45am – Tea/Coffee Break
11:00am – Panel Session 3: Routes to Market
Speakers:
Thomasina Miers – Founder, Wahaca
Charles Rolls – Co-founder, Fever Tree
Jessica Tucker – Founder, Urban Food Fest
12:00-2:00pm – The Showcase Event
All workshop attendees are invited to join the invite-only showcase event highlighting the winners of the Foodpreneur Festival Competition in Retail and Street Food. This event is not to be missed as it will be chock-full of some of the biggest names in the UK foodscape, including influential foodies, bloggers, foodpreneurs, and – most importantly – some pretty tasty treats by the winners.
I enjoyed all the panel talks and gained a insight into the brains of the foodpreneurs. How their passion fueled into the path of success. Going through trial and errors and their drive for determination to succeed was written on the face.
Topics such as when do branding come in. At the beginning for some of the speakers, they wasted a lot of money on designing a brand with no product. Coming up with a name was also tricky. The Meringue Girls wanted to be named as Stiff Peaks, and before being approached by a television company they wanted to do cupcakes. The television company turned them away saying there was too many cupcake businesses and they came back with the meringues idea.
The showcase event Sir Richard Branson came along and presented the awards to the winners. Well done to everyone that won.
Find out more about Virgin Startup here.