Since I first featured on Dragons’ Den it’s been an emotional roller-coaster and as with any business, it’s been challenging to get to the top. Even when you get investment, success is not guaranteed. But with hard work, we have managed to take Barenaked Foods to where it is today.

Ross was given initial funding from his future father-in-law, to get the business started. He travelled to the Chamber of Commerce, in China, to find out more about noodle manufacture. We have a turnover of 600, 000 as of June 2015, a 110 per cent increase on the previous year. With our extended distribution, turnover for the next year will hit 1m. I started off by importing 3, 000 units of product, and now we import 80, 000 units every six weeks.When Barenaked Foods founder Ross Mendham went on BBC investment show Dragons’ Den in 2013 to pitch his business it had been in operation for two years. Set up to provide low carbohydrate and gluten-free products, goods have now reached the shelves of major supermarket Morrisons. Getting your goods into a big supermarket can be transformational (5) What made you want to take part in Dragons? Den? I needed investment and exposure to help my business grow. Dragons’ Den is an amazing platform to help people with great ideas turn them into reality. All of the Dragons areextremely clever people with a wealth of experience. The hard work really starts when you get the investment. The biggest tip I have for people is to learn. The language barrier was difficult but he knew that he had to find a factory which met UK food production standards. His patience paid off when he found the ideal place to produce his own style of konjac (or shirataki) noodles. With the help of Peter Jones, who provided 60, 000 for a 50 per cent stake in Barenaked Foods, Mendham has launched Barenaked Rice which has only 16 calories per 100g. This product joins Barenaked Noodles and Barenaked Protein Noodles in a growing roster of sought-after products.

The entrepreneur decided that he would make this food available in the UK, so he created his own recipe with a blend of konjac, soybean and oatmeal flour to give his noodles a texture similar to traditional rice noodles. His recipe had no fat, sugar, dairy or gluten and was low in carbohydrate — and so… Barenaked Noodles were born!

all recipes

Help with cash flow, to give the business the financial boost it needed to help market my new product and brand. The biggest contribution though is the knowledge and experience they offer. But you do have to have the drive and self belief, as it gets harder the bigger you get. You have to be able to climb any obstacle that you come up against. To find out more, Business Advice caught up with Mendham and asked him how Jones has contributed and what his tips for dealing with supermarkets are. Barenaked Foods was founded in 2011 by Ross Mendham, who after years of dieting and worrying about the food he was eating, decided that ‘enough was enough.’ It was time to do something about it… After struggling with “always being on a diet”, I wanted to make it easier for people in a similar situation to lose weight without missing out on the food they like and love. There was a gap in the market and I thought I would be able to launch my new product and food brand.

We have distribution in Dubai, Malta and recently South Africa. I would like to not only become an established healthy, gluten-free food brand in the UK but also internationally. The sky is the limit. Ross admits that he has always found weight loss ‘especially difficult’ due to his love of pasta and rice. He thought ‘there must be a low fat, low carbohydrate version of the foods that he craves and loves – especially pasta!’ Konjac (‘Shirataki’) noodles can be created by harvesting fibre from the konjac root by mashing it down into a flour, before mixing it with water and calcium hydroxide to create a gel which can be cut into strips.

On The Up

Barenaked noodles and rice have also caught the attention of celebrities and influencers, who now enjoy them as part of a balanced/restricted diet or to aid their weight management plans.