Levi Roots founded Reggae Reggae Sauce after pitching the product on BBC’s Dragons’ Den in series 4.
Roots, whose real name is Keith Valentine Graham, presented his jerk barbecue sauce in 2007. He secured a £50,000 investment from Peter Jones and Richard Farleigh in exchange for a share of the business. The pitch helped turn a recipe associated with Roots’s family and Caribbean cooking into a widely distributed British food brand.
The sauce was originally made for sale at Notting Hill Carnival, where Roots had sold food and performed as a musician. A common mix-up is to credit the Dragons with inventing the sauce; they invested in and helped commercialise an existing product. The brand later expanded into related Caribbean food products and cookbooks.