Theo Paphitis and Viv Lambe

On Friday, Viv met Theo Paphitis! It wasn’t a chance meeting, in case you’re wondering, but part of an event the businessman and Dragons’ Den star had organised for the winners of a competition he runs called Small Business Sunday.

Small Business Sunday was started in 2010, and each Sunday Theo rewards small businesses that tweet him @TheoPaphitis and describe their business in one tweet – including the all-important hashtag #SBS. Only tweets made in the time slot between 5pm and 7.30pm count.

Each week Theo reviews and chooses his favourite lucky six who are then re-tweeted. As he has over 230,000 followers, this provides a massive boost to the chosen lucky businesses.

And, in December, he chose Brown Bag Crisps as one of his winners, which is why we were invited to the event. It was a great day, during which there was lots of time to ask Theo questions, meet other small business owners and exchange advice and support. All in all, we feel very lucky to be part of such a special club and it’s great to be able to network with other small British businesses such as ours.

Small Business Sunday is a competition run by Theo on Twitter. To enter the competition you have to Tweet Theo on a Sunday between 5pm and 7.30pm, explaining why your business is worthy of a Retweet. He then chooses six businesses which he Re-tweets to all of his 200,000 followers.

The competition has now been running for two years and Theo decided to host a networking event for all of his winners. So, with crisps at the ready, we are now heading to Birmingham for this very special event – excited isn’t the word! I’ll report back later!

Viv

Brown Bag Crisps is run by husband and wife team Phil and Viv, who set up the business in 2010 following many years perfecting the recipe for the best crisp in the couple’s home kitchen.

The hand-cooked snacks come in five tasty flavours packaged in the stylish brown-paper foil bags that inspired their name.

Why not come and sample:

• Lightly Salted (40g and 120g bags)
• Sea Salt and Malt Vinegar (40g and 120g bags)
• Mature Cheddar, Manchego & Onion (40g and 120g bags)
• Sea Salt and Black Pepper (120g bag)
• Oak Smoked Chilli (40g and 120g bags)

Sea Salt and Malt Vinegar and Oak Smoked Chilli both won Gold Star in the 2011 Great Taste Awards.

Brown Bag Crisps are made from seasonal varieties of British heritage potatoes. All the flavourings are 100% natural, allowing the taste to shine through.

You can find our bags at a growing number of independent food stores across the UK.

We look forward to welcoming you to our stand.

For more details visit our website www.brownbagcrisps.co.uk.
Keep in touch by following us on Twitter @brownbagcrisps

Have fun!

So, to enter, please follow us on Facebook and/or Twitter (links at the top right) and answer the following question: How many flavours of crisps do Brown Bag make? Once you’ve got the answer, please email it to crunch@brownbagcrisps.co.uk by Tuesday, January 31st at midday.

Good luck!

On Sunday night, the man himself tweeted about Brown Bag Crisps having chosen us as one of his Small Business Sunday winners. Small Business Sunday, or SBS, is a weekly Twitter competition where small businesses like ours promote themselves to Theo Paphitis and he chooses six winners to ‘retweet’ their message. Of the hundreds of tweets he received on Sunday (December 4), ours was picked out and Brown Bag Crisps was mentioned to the more than 200,000 people who follow Theo on Twitter.

This is a great boost for our small (and perfectly-formed!) company and helps us get our delicious potato crisps talked about by even more people.

Brown Bag Crisps are the only crisps in the UK to be cooked in olive oil. They are handcooked, hand seasoned and then sealed in a foil-lined paper bag to guarantee they taste as good in your hands as they did when we took them out of the cookers.

Please do get in touch if you have any questions or comments. Brown Bag Crisps’ owners Phil and Viv are on 01344 566267 or philandviv@brownbagcrisps.co.uk

@earthmommaof6

Well done Yvonne – we’ve DMed you our email address so please email us your postal address or send it to us on here.

We also asked a bonus question, which was ‘What was Viv doing on this day (22 Nov) sixteen years ago?’, to which the answer was ‘Taking her driving test’.

So a box of crisps is also heading to…..

@helsbrownie79

Well done Helen – I was quite relieved you got it right! (Please contact us as above).

As I say, we were delighted with the response and will be running more competitions for our regular followers.

Happy weekend one and all and happy munching!

Viv and Phil

Sabrina Ghayour

We were made up to see a review from our latest fan – chef, writer and complete foody Sabrina Ghayour – so we thought you might like to see it too over on sabrinaghayour.com

Thank you for spreading the Brown Bag word and do keep letting us know what you think!

The food festival will have cookery displays, demonstrations and lots of delicious things to try, including award-winning Brown Bag Crisps.

Find out more on harehatchsheeplands.co.uk

We hope to see you later. Join us on Facebook and Twitter (@brownbagcrisps) to see which fairs we’ll be attending in the run-up to Christmas.

Our delicious crisps, the only crisps in the UK to be handcooked in olive oil, have won three Great Taste Awards since we launched in 2010.

They are available from many fine food establishments up and down the country and can now be purchased from www.goodnessdirect.co.uk

Read more about them their blog

Happy munching!