Taste of success for vegan sweet business launched by Horsham Deliveroo riders

Jamie Miller and girlfriend Catherine Dodd began making their special brand of sweets – called Catherine’s Originals – last year and put them on sale at the Brighton Christmas Festival.

"It was a huge hit,” said Jamie, 21, who lives in Horsham.

It all began in 2021 when the couple generated the branding, designed the box, created the recipes and “ate lots of yummy chocolate in the process.”

They ended up selling their entire stock of 30,000 hand-made and hand-wrapped chocolates – a vegan selection of Quality-street style sweets.

"Now, we are at the stage in the business where we are currently scaling-up in order to meet the public demand for Catherine’s Originals that was proven to us back in December, with exciting new interest shown to us by well-known confectioners and large retailers,” said Jamie.

Such was their success that the couple – as Deliveroo riders – entered Deliveroo’s ‘Big Pitch’ competition which invites entrepreneurs to pitch at Deliveroo HQ in the City of London, with a chance to win £50,000.

A total of 1,300 applicants were narrowed to four finalists – and Jamie and Catherine were named as winners with a cut of the prize money.

They now plan to put the cash towards a nationwide ‘soft-launch’ in early 2023, with the prize money being allocated to manufacturing and marketing costs.

Says Jamie: “Our chocolates are not just vegan, but palm-oil free, gluten-free, we use fairtrade cocoa, and are 100 per cent recyclable.

"This is what makes ‘Originals’ original.”