Who is on Dragons’ Den tonight? Meet Spudos CEOs Del & Chris and Dig bosses Henry & Alex

BOSSES of two green and innovative companies — Spudos and Dig — are seeking investment from the Dragons.

Here we get to know these entrepreneurial and environmentally conscious business people, who put their cases forward on the popular BBC One show on Thursday, February 13, 2025.

Both businesses bring unique products to the table, aiming to impress Dragons Peter Jones, Steven Bartlett, Deborah Meaden, Sara Davies and Touker Souleyman and secure capital for their ventures.

Spudos

Sustainable crisp company Spudos is led by co-founders Del Currie and Chris Neal.

They took a somewhat an unconventional path into the snack food industry, coming from a background in web and mobile app development through their company Analog Republic.

Del, a self-proclaimed crisp addict, found himself struggling to reconcile his love for crisps with his desire to live more sustainably.

This personal dilemma became the catalyst for starting Spudos.

The company's website explains: "We eat six billion bags of crisps every year in the UK alone, and most of those bags can’t be recycled and end up in landfill, the ocean, or being burned.

"The average crisp bag takes 80 years to decompose.

"At Spudos, all our crisp bags and sachets are 100% home compostable, decomposing in matter of weeks instead of decades.

When you choose Spudos you’re not just giving your taste buds a treat, you’re choosing to do good for the planet."

Del's passion for crisps and Chris' enthusiasm for innovative ideas merged to create a product that addresses both flavour and environmental concerns.

Their journey into the world of crisps was not without challenges.

Having no prior experience in food production, they took the unusual step of hiring a "crisp consultant" to guide them through the intricacies of flavour development, nutrition and production processes.

On getting the business off the ground, Del and Chris said: "We got ourselves an up-cycled shipping container for Spudos HQ and started working on finding a way to get our crisps cooked, our flavours produced and researching our environmentally friendly packaging.

"Initially we just planned on selling to zero waste shops, so we were building all kinds of contraptions for dispensing crisps for the refill market.

"But it wasn't long before the public came knocking on our door.

"Soon we were selling direct to the public and expanding our flavours. But packaging was always a problem we needed to solve."

Spudos offers a unique twist on traditional crisps — their product comes unseasoned, allowing consumers to customise their snacking experience using one of eight "Spud Dust" seasonings.

As Del and Chris explained: "We're pretty tongue and cheek here at Spudos, we don't take ourselves too seriously, so when we first started doing our Spud Dust, we'd try to come up with funny names and combos.

"Del was a big David Beckham fan boy, so we had a flavour called "David Bacon" — and to accompany it, we also released "Nosh Spice". 

"This was of course before being informed about the meaning of 'nosh' up north! So that flavour got retired pretty quickly!"

Dig

Also taking on the Dragons are Henry Bartlam and Alexandra Hollingsworth, the founders of Dig — a pre-designed instant flower bed business that is also focused on protecting the environment.

Dig is the brainchild of Henry, who is also a managing partner of the advertising agency Leagas Delaney.

He’s been a keen gardener since childhood, and his frustration over how difficult and expensive it can be to create a beautiful garden led him to starting the company.

Henry said on the company's website: "Dig is a total passion project. I love gardening, I love plants, I love nature.

"If we can make it easier for more people to enjoy it, then we're winning."

Alexandra is in charge of landscape and garden design at Dig.

She achieved a distinction in training with the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) and the Garden Design Academy of Ireland.

Alexandra subsequently won a national television competition for new designers, which led to her exhibiting a show garden at Bloom — Ireland’s national garden show, which won a silver medal.

She’s even had a show garden featured on the BBC's Gardeners’ World, which won silver at Gardeners’ World Live in 2019.

On their preparation for facing the Dragons, Henry and Alexandra wrote on their blog: "Alongside all of the paperwork, we really got our heads down and did our revision!

"This covered everything from watching previous Dragons’ episodes, reading up on articles and blogs from businesses who’d been in the Dragons’ Den, practising our main pitch endlessly, checking and re-checking our numbers and strategy and even using our families and friends to host a practice Den where they played the Dragons! (They were almost more fierce than the actual ones, it turns out…).

"This proved really invaluable because — although you can never know exactly what’s going to happen in the Den (this was certainly the case for us!) — we felt we knew the business inside out and where the challenges might come from, allowing us to feel at least a little bit in control!"