Black Bear Burger and Naked Dough

Fred Sirieix welcomes Naked Dough, a raw cookie dough parlour, and Black Bear Burger, a premium burger idea, to Manchester. Both Naked Dough and Black Bear Burger are looking for £250,000 to roll out nationwide.

Naked Dough was set up in June 2017 and traded as a pop-up at London's Old Street station, turning over £150k since opening. Founders Jen and Hannah gave up their previous jobs to launch the idea, after Jen retrained as a pastry chef and developed the basic recipe for raw, celiac and vegan-friendly cookie dough. Flavours include Nak-Ed Sheeran (salted caramel and honeycomb), Unicorn Food (marshmallows and sprinkles) and Nutting Better (peanut butter, nibbled peanuts). They sell two scoops for £3.90, toppings for 55p and bottles of cookie dough milk. They believe cookie dough could take on top ice cream brands as a sweet treat and have valued the business at over £2million.

Naked Dough attracted a lot of investor interest - three want to see it in Manchester. They included Jamie Barber, who has owned and operated many restaurant brands in the UK, including Kitchen Italia, Villandry and Sake No Hana. He is the co-founder and CEO of Hush Restaurants and Cabana Brazilian Barbecue, and co-CEO of Hache Burger Connoisseurs. Shruti Ajitsaria is an angel investor who manages a portfolio of investments. She is also a derivatives lawyer for Allen & Overy. Shruti previously invested in JKS restaurants (Gymkhana, Hoppers) when they first launched and invests in a cross-sector of ideas, from food and craft beer to fintech. Chris Miller is the founder of restaurant investment vehicle White Rabbit Fund. Since 2016, he's invested in Indian tapas concept Kricket, Hawaiian grab-and-go concept Island Poke, Italian heritage brand Lina Stores, and he's about to launch a modern Chinese concept in the City.

Black Bear Burger was created in 2016 by husband-and-wife team Liz and Stew Down, who, after spending two years working ski seasons in Whistler, Canada, decided it was important to do something that they were passionate about. Stew's passion was cooking - he grew up on a grass-fed beef farm in Devon. Once back in the UK, they moved to London and set up their food stall, looking for a slice of the £3.3bn burger market. Stew was working as an oil analyst and Liz as a burns specialist nurse, but they have since gone full time with Black Bear Burger at Boxpark, Shoreditch. Two investors want to see Black Bear Burger: Scott Collins, co-founder of hit burger and cocktail group MEATliquor, which has grown to a group of 11 restaurants, with sites in Brighton, across London and in Leeds, and Tim Gee, property director with Allied London, award-winning property development and investment company. Tim is tasked with finding new restaurant concepts for their estates in Manchester.

Both Naked Dough and Black Bear Burger already operate successful businesses. Can Jen and Hannah, and Liz and Stew, convince the investors they have got what it takes to become the next high-street hits? They have got three days to prove themselves.