County Durham based artisan producer of gourmet popcorn has conquered a niche sector of the health food market with bespoke flavoured popcorn.
After a £150,000 investment from the North East Angel Fund, managed by Rivers Capital Partners, the company has quadrupled its turnover and created four new jobs.
The first gourmet savoury and sweet popcorn manufacturer in the UK, Consett Popcorn Company Limited (CPC) was founded in 2009 by husband and wife team Richard and Catherine Furze with a vision to make and brand clean label popcorn to suit a variety of tastes.
In their first three years since the firmâs incorporation, the couple invested £25,000 of their own personal savings into the company.
Positioning themselves as a premium manufacturer the popcorn is wholesome and authentic, handmade using genuine kitchen cupboard ingredients.
CPC do not use flavourings, flavour enhancers or chemically derived natural flavourings to produce a counterfeit taste.
Now Soil Association Accredited since the investment from Rivers Capital in December 2014, CPC are now operating from a manufacturing site in Consett, have scaled up their processes and purchased larger, more dynamic equipment to distribute their produce UK-wide as well as exporting to Holland.
Founder and Director at CPC, Catherine Furze, commented: Most of our growth in the past couple of years has been in the organic sector, which has been very successful for us.
Looking forward, Rivers have introduced CPC to a food industry expert to provide business support within this sector and align the businessâ plans for growth.
The initial funding was secured via the North East Angel Fund managed by Rivers Capital Partners. Dr Michael Dickens, Fund Manager for the Angel Fund, led the investment via the fundâs core capital from the Finance for Business North East programme.
Jonathan Gold, Managing Director at Rivers said, With their success in the organic food sector weâre looking forward to watching CPC continue to thrive in this space. A great example to other North East entrepreneurs looking for funding to realise their growth plans.
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