Russell and Atwell

It’s a wrap our first time exhibiting at - lunch! - The definitive event for the café, coffee shop & food-to-go sector. Great to spend time on the stand both with Steve Russell and Will Lowther - delighted with our ‘Silver’ in the innovation challenge for Dirty Blond Impulse pouches. Great to meet Pip Murray as a fellow competitor in the Innvation Challenge - congrats on the Gold and your delicious new stuffed oat bars. Always good to meet old friends like Steve Kearns from the wonderful Cawston Press | B-Corp™ , Jonathan Shimmin , Andrew Walker , Oliver Lloyd as well as new ones Jens Knoop, Romy Miller and William Gordon-Harris (congrats on the fundraise - amazing!) Finally, so helpful to reconnect with fellow SMEs - all of us striving to make progress and making a few mistakes along the way - always reassuring to trade experiences and tips, failures and successes. Life in a startup, where you often actively try to help fellow businesses as they help you is tough, but so refreshingly different to corporate life!

On the stand today. We snuck over to our Swiss friends to have a little look…

We’re all set up! - come and see us right next to Keynote stage 3 We are so excited for our first time at lunch! - The definitive event for the café, coffee shop & food-to-go sector. If you know us pop by and say hi, if you don’t and want to know just how good our range tastes then come say hi too! Steve Russell and Giles Atwell our founders at Russell and Atwell will both be here tomorrow

Day 1 at Speciality & Fine Food Fair with Russell and Atwell done! A good day, definitely different to last year with fewer but better vetted attendees which was good to see Loved giving people the opportunity to try our chocolates and share how we are looking to change the desserts category one bite at a time! Nothing beats a face to face conversation even if my feet are a little sore! Day 2 awaits! If your coming we’re upstairs stand 2600!!

🤝 Meet the Brands 🤝 We sat down with a few exhibitors to ask a bit about their brand, what products and launches we can expect at lunch! and why exhibiting is an unmissable opportunity for them. READ THE SERIES ➡ https://lnkd.in/eZ2duwKt Check out Westpak Group Ltd, BON BON'S (WHOLESALE) LIMITED, Russell and Atwell, The Artisan Drinks Co, Love Cocoa | B Corp, Health Bae Ltd and Pastorfrigor GB Limited. 👀 Keep an eye on the page as more blogs will be released.

Good luck to all the Dragons’ Den brands tonight as the new series begins again at 8pm on BBC 1. It's now nearly 2 years since we were on-air. It's been an incredible ride! So what happened since? 🍫 Over 1 million chocolates sold 📺 Seen by ~10 million people through Dragons’ Den and Gogglebox 💰 Got 5 offers twice and secured investment from Peter Jones & Steven Bartlett  💹 Sold 2 years of sales in 2 hours on 10th March (early delight turned to massive stress & pressure to get orders out)  Dirty Blond Chocolates which sold out in just 6 weeks 👯 Doubled our team (we're still very small!) ❄ Doubled our chilled storage 🛒 Got listed in Booth's, Fenwicks and a number of other shops 🍫 Launched 3 new Fresh chocolate flavours, including Dirty Blond that sold-out in 6 weeks 🏆 Won our first Great Taste Award for Limited Edition Seville Orange Needless to say, Dragon’s Den has been transformative to our business. Have you got any questions about what it’s like to apply and appear on Dragons’ Den? Ask in the comments and Steve and I will try to respond!

Come say hello to us at BBC Good Food Show. We have tasters!