This year, we partnered with intu for our annual search to find the UK's best food and drink start-ups. Hundreds of entrepreneurs from across the country entered the competition to be judged by some of the industry's leading influencers and entrepreneurs. As previous winners have gone on to be stocked in major supermarkets, open popular restaurants and export their products globally, there was a lot a stake for the finalists. Take a look at what happened as we crowned the winner of Foodpreneur 2017.

The Prize

Foodpreneur 2017 partners intu own many of the UK's largest and most popular shopping centres, attracting over 400 million unique visits each year - so this year's prize was bigger and better than ever. Eight semi-finalists won the opportunity to showcase their business in a customised pop-up in one of intu’s prime shopping centres and online at intu.co.uk for one week. Those semi-finalists were challenged to use the opportunity to attract as much attention and sell as much product as they could, with the 4 best performing businesses making it through to the final.

The four finalists were then invited to Virgin StartUp HQ in London to pitch and present their business to a panel of top industry experts.

The winner would go on to receive the unique opportunity to run their business - reaching an audience of millions - in one of intu’s UK centres and online for six whole weeks - free of charge! The finalists were also battling it out to access 18 hours of mentoring sessions from Virgin StartUp mentors and intu executives.

Watch the finalist's pitches

Virgin Foodpreneur winner - The Snaffling Pig

The Winner

Nick Coleman and Andrew Allen of Snaffling Pig took home the prize of six weeks retail space in Intu Lakeside, the retail centre with the highest footfall in the UK. Their modern take on the stodgy old pork scratching, elevating it from pub snack to the gifting market, won over the judges, as did their inventive marketing, branding, achievements and passion.

Co-founder Nick says: “Winning is a mighty honour – we feel humbled. Now it’s all about using this prize as a springboard as we move forward to Christmas. Exciting things to come!”

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