Organic baby food firm tastes £50,000 success

Oct 19 2007 by Alistair Houghton, Liverpool Daily Post

AN ORGANIC baby food firm is proving it has the recipe for success after scooping a £50,000 prize from millionaire Liverpool businessman Steve Morgan.

Chester firm So Baby won the Best New Business title at the Morgan Foundation Entrepreneur Awards last night.

The foundation, funded by Redrow founder Mr Morgan, launched the awards with a £100,000 prize pot to honour the region’s young entrepreneurial role models.

The winners were named at a ceremony last night in Liverpool’s waterfront Crowne Plaza Hotel.

So Baby makes hand-made frozen organic baby meals for babies from 6 months to two years old.

Partners Chris Larkin and Sarah Dennison founded the business in September 2005 after being inspired by the birth of their daughter Charlotte.

The award judges said they were impressed with the pair’s passion and desire to become “a trailblazer in the UK organic baby food arena.”

Liverpool educational family attraction Underwater Street won the £10,000 first runner-up prize in the category, while Liverpool men’s grooming salon Hooka won the £5,000 second runner-up prize.

3BView of St Helens, It’s The Little Things of Maghull and J2 Aircraft Dynamics of Blackpool were highly commended.

The Best Young Entrepreneur first prize of £10,000 was awarded to University of Liverpool student Nathan O’Connor, 20, who has created the Laptop Matcher website providing information on which laptop to buy.

Liverpool music businesses Dry Ice Dynasty and Sentric Music each won £2,500 as joint runners-up.

Chester’s The Grass Man and Liverpool’s Off Beat Percussion were highly commended.

Wirral’s Championship Miniaturegolf won the top prize of £12,000 in the Best Potential Business category.

The Moreton firm, founded by Nick Ashfield, aims to “transform the stereotypical seaside crazy golf course into a revolutionary brand of golf entertainment” by creating miniature caricatures of world-famous golf holes.

The judges, who included Liverpool cushion entrepreneur Tony Caldeira, were impressed with his research proving there is a market for his designs.

Joint runners-up in the category were Liverpool’s Activity Box and Wallasey’s Textandsell. They won £4,000 each.

Mr Morgan said: “As a young working class lad from Liverpool, I never dreamt that one day I would have been able to create Redrow, one of the UK’s leading house builders. The purpose of the awards is to highlight what can be achieved and to encourage would-be entrepreneurs in the North West who hopefully will go on to create wealth and prosperity for themselves and the local economy.”

alistairhoughton