John Gray and Sean Robinson, founders of a retro sweet shop in South Shields in the North East, will be the second business to pitch on tonight’s episode of Dragons’ Den.
Opened in May 2024, Mr Swainstons sells hundreds of retro sweets including cola cubes, aniseed balls and sherbet lemons. With 600 jars of sweets today, it also has an online business.
As well as individual bags, customers can build pick ‘n’ mix boxes while there is also a ‘snackle box’ with 1.6kg of sweets in a reusable lockable container.
The business was inspired by a trip to the Beamish living museum, they will tell the Dragons, after the first pitch from Cicely Coops, founder of Selkie.
Following John and Sean will be mother-and-son Shashi and Sanjay Aggarwal, behind Spice Kitchen; and Louise Truman, the London-based founder of Plotpackers.
Series 23 of Dragons’ Den returned to our screens tonight after the summer break.
Episode 8 sees the return of guest judges Susie Ma and Jenna Meek – the commerce queens who made their debuts earlier in the series – alongside regular Dragons Peter Jones, Deborah Meaden and Steven Bartlett.
With female Dragons outnumbering the males for the first time, it signals a power shift in the Den… this series will be the last one featuring Touker Suleyman, who announced earlier this year that he would be leaving the show after more than a decade in the Den.