GRIMSBY vegetable crisp brand Scrubbys has secured "a better deal than the Dragons could offer" after winning the first investment from a regional corporate financing fund.
The six figure sum, which sees husband and wife team John and Claire Brumby retain a majority shareholding, has been secured from Harrogate-based Granary Investment Partners.
The fund was established earlier this year by Yorkshire corporate financier Mark Lister and food industry entrepreneur Paul Simmonds.
They have stepped where dragons feared to tread earlier this year, and come in with the brand now "flying off the shelves" of Waitrose stores nationwide.
It provides the "oomph" required by the fledgling food brand, having endured the first two years on limited funding, as exposed on national television when they faced Peter Jones and chums in the BBC Den.
Mrs Brumby, now looking forward to returning full time to Scrubbys having had to take a job elsewhere in the industry, said: "We are absolutely delighted. It is what we have been looking for all this time. It is a fantastic time for it to come, we now have a good board behind us with a lot of industry knowledge and experience. I am sure we are going to be all systems go.
"We think we have got a better deal than if we had succeeded with the Dragons in all honesty. We wouldn't have got the hands-on support and help that we are going to get now.
"Our vision is to be the leading vegetable and fruit healthy snacking business in the UK... then we will take on the rest of the world!"
On setting up the fund, Mr Simmonds, former chief executive of Glisten, the company behind confectionery bands Dormen's, Fruitus and some Weightwatcher lines, said: "We created Granary to help the food and drink businesses of tomorrow fulfil their potential. Granary's team of experienced entrepreneurs and senior managers are ready to commit their own time, money and energy to help deliver enhanced performance in the smaller end of the UK food sector. We believe that this is where the most vibrant, creative, and passionate players are. Many just need some high quality insight and an injection of capital from food-people."Tomorrow: Why we chose to invest. Granary Investment Partners reveal how it all added up as a great deal after crunching the Scrubby numbers.
