One Dragons’ Den star invested £50,000 in a company despite calling the founder ‘useless’ (Picture: BBC Studios)
A Dragons’ Den contestant has managed to score a whopping £50,000 investment in her dim sum business, despite being labelled ‘absolutely bloody useless’.
Sandy Tang, who originally showed off her cooking skills on MasterChef in 2020, making it all the way to the finals and impressing judges Gregg Wallace and John Torode with her recipes, entered the Den hoping for offers from the likes of Peter Jones, Deborah Meaden, Touker Suleyman, Sara Davies and Steven Bartlett.
‘Our mission is to bring new flavours, excitement, and a variety of dumplings to UK consumers,’ she pitched, sharing her hopes for her products to become as popular as fresh pasta.
Having already sold more than 150,000 dumplings to 25,000 shoppers, Sandy was looking to expand her empire even more, and was willing to give away 5% of her company’s shares.
The dim sum company she co-founded, Love Sum, had already raised £2,000,000 from some generous friends and family members, with half of the investment going towards rent and machinery to continue production.
However, despite the immense investment she’d already achieved, and the dumpling tasters wooing the Dragons, several raised their concerns, with Deborah remarking she was ‘perplexed’ and Touker pointing out ‘red flags’.
Sandy Tang brought her cooking skills to the Den (Picture: BBC)
She appeared as a finalist on MasterChef in 2020 alongside amateur chefs David and Thomas, who was crowned champion that year (Picture: BBC/Shine TV)
Grilling Sandy on the financials of the business, Deborah concluded: ‘You at the moment are taking yourself into a whole different ballgame without a glimmer of knowledge that you might get into a supermarket other than a conversation, and that makes it very hard to invest, so I’m afraid I wont’ be investing – I’m out.’
Touker, Steven and guest Dragon Trinny Woodall followed suit, leaving just Peter Jones to offer an investment.
‘My worry a little bit is that you do have this access to cash which is really fortunate for you, I just don’t understand your motivation,’ Trinny said, while Sara commented: ‘You’re not just trying to run before you can walk, you’re in the next town! And it would be terrifying for me to have any of my money in there.’
But despite the criticisms, Peter was willing to invest, for a high stake.
Guest Dragon Trinny Woodall was unimpressed (Picture: BBC)
Peter Jones was the only Dragon to offer money up (Picture: BBC Studios)
‘You’re clearly good at cooking, and clearly good at creating, the fact that you’ve got to the final of MasterChef,’ he began.
‘But to come in here without a very clear plan of how you’re going to take investment and how this business functions financially was a massive, massive risk.’
He went on: ‘I genuinely think you need a lot more than help, I think you absolutely, desperately need me.
‘I absolutely love this, I think that this is completely up my street.
Sandy was branded ‘absolutely bloody useless at running a business’ (Picture: BBC)
‘The fact that you are absolutely bloody useless at running a business is brilliant, because where could I ever get an opportunity to invest in a business like this with a genius individual that clearly knows creatively how to create amazing products, clearly knows how to sell a product.
‘You’ve done everything right, and the bit that you’ve done wrong is where Peter Jones comes in.’
Having offered up £50,000 for 20% in Love Sum – 15% higher than Sandy had originally asked for – Peter walked away with a stake in the company that would reduce to 10% after receiving his money back.
‘To say I like it is an understatement, I love it,’ he said.
Turning to the other Dragons, he said: ‘I’m so glad that you made those comments and just didn’t have the vision.’
Dragons’ Den airs Thursdays at 8pm on BBC One and iPlayer.
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