primal pantry suzie walker

Primal Pantry founder Suzie Walker

The Primal Pantry is locked in talks with potential investors to secure its largest injection of funding to date as sales of its snack bars continue to boom.

Founder Suzie Walker has hired boutique corporate advisory firm Stamford Partners, which worked on the £60m sale of Nakd and Trek owner Natural Balance Foods to Lotus Bakeries last year, to help with the negotiations.

Walker would not reveal the potential partners in talks at this stage, but said she was “keeping her options open”.

Any deal would allow The Primal Pantry to launch NPD into new categories, invest in the brand and grow the team domestically and overseas.

Soaring consumer demand for healthier, less processed snacks has fuelled rapid growth at the paleo diet brand since it launched in February 2014.

Retails sales have swelled from £450k in its first year to £1.4m in 2015 - and the business is on target to reach £4.5m by the end of this year, with a target of £20m by 2019.

The paleo bars are sold in over 3,000 UK stores, including Tesco, Waitrose and Sainsbury’s, and in 26 countries around the world - with exports accounting for a third of the business.

“We are confident that our imminent investment partnership will help us to keep innovating while still keeping up with the demand,” Walker said.

Walker, an alumnus of The Grocer’s Top New Talent in 2015, launched The Primal Pantry with a £16k investment. She won £150k of backing from an angel investor just a year later. the business been consistently profitable since launching but Walker has reinvested everything back into the business to keep up with the growth.