Two entrepreneurial mums who launched Cheeky Chompers have just announced outstanding financial results for their first year of trading. But they are yet to see dragon, Duncan Bannatyne, fulfil his promise made on Dragon’s Den “if you make those figures I’ll eat 100 of your teethers and bibs without salt”.
Edinburgh-based Julie Wilson and Amy Livingstone launched the Neckerchew, the world’s first chewy dribble bib last February, and appeared on BBC Two’s Dragon’s Den last night (Sunday 2 March). They were unsuccessful in gaining funding support, because the dragons didn’t think the pair would be able to sell as many Neckerchews as predicted. Duncan Bannatyne was also quoted as saying “it’s absolutely crazy to think you’ll make that sort of money”.
The mums have proved the dragons wrong. Turnover for the first year to 31 January 2013 was £158,928, with a gross profit of £104,892 (66%). Almost 30,000 bibs were sold to eight UK national retailers including John Lewis, Jojo Maman, Kiddicare and Mothercare plus 42 independent retailers in the UK and 14 countries including Canada, Benelux, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Australia and UAE.
Julie Wilson commented: “The Neckerchew is a very simple idea – as mums we found ourselves constantly picking up and re-sanitising our children’s dropped teethers, so we came up with the innovative idea that if it was attached to the child in some way, then it would be immediately accessible, and importantly, clean. The feedback from parents has been fantastic.
“We were over the moon to have the opportunity to pitch our business idea on Dragon’s Den and whilst we weren’t successful in getting funding from them, it was an amazing experience and certainly helped raise our profile. Of course we were delighted that we exceeded our projections, especially when the dragons didn’t believe we could do it – but we definitely proved them wrong. ”
Cheeky Chompers has new lines coming on stream and new product ideas in the pipeline which will be released later this year. The company has been nominated for a range of prestigious trade awards. It received a Highly Commended award from BANTA last year, as well as being awarded the maximum £50k funding in the Scottish EDGE competition, and being awarded The Baby Innovation Award from Baby Stuf in Holland in this year.
The full range of Neckerchew designs is available to purchase from leading retailers or direct from the website www.CheekyChompers.com from £9.99.
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