Mr Lee's Pure Foods Co

Idea

Introduction

Mr Lee’s Pure Foods is an innovative food/tech company creating award-winning premium healthy noodles-in-a-cup and soon to launch instant Congee Asian rice porridges, and is now expanding on 3 continents. Our mission is to disrupt food-on-the-go’s unhealthy reputation and help time-pressed people eat better.

Good in, Bad out: Our foods have only the finest real-food ingredients & absolutely no nasties. With over 50 significant global food, health and business awards and nominations, our ‘Real Food-Real Taste-Real Quick’ focus has gained a growing global presence in multiple channels across Europe, Australia and now we aim to launch in the USA in 2020.

These are complemented by Mr Lee’s automated, interactive ‘Hot Noodle Vending Kiosks’, a 24/7 healthy self-serve locational food solution in early-stage roll-out in the UK and we aim to also implement pilots of these as part of the US launch. Our ambition is that 2020 will also see the launch of our truly innovative and highly anticipated instant Congee - with patent filed on its unique homemade-quality-in-an-instant food format.

Intended impact

Mr Lee’s began 2016 with the mission to improve food for time-pressed people. Damien Lee, a 4-time Cancer survivor and instant noodle lover, was obsessed enough to create a ‘No Nasties’ noodle that he could enjoy as part of a healthy and natural diet. And it grew from there.

The global instant noodle market is expected to reach US$57.5Bn by 2024, with most sales being cheap, artificial and nutrition-less, not addressing the larger ‘healthier on-the-go’ consumer trend. With Asian-influenced foods out-pacing all other global food trends, fresh noodle bars proliferating and consumers everywhere wanting healthier fast food, it was time for the instant noodle to get real!

Mr Lee’s foods contain only the finest ingredients - real & nutritious freeze-dried meat and veggies, air-dried rice noodles, chef-made broths and absolutely no nasties, palm oil, MSG. They’re certified low sugar & gluten free, are low calorie & have Vegan options, 100% recyclable/compostable packaging and no plastic sachets.

Substantial accomplishments to date

- Strategic global sales channels in place that we believe will lead to scale growth: major grocery, convenience and health retailers in 5 countries; airlines and railways (client growth and sales pre-CV19 expected to come back soon after); food service sector; and online e-com grocery sites including Amazon & Mrleesnoodles.com.

- Manufacturing established with supply chains in UK, Australia and USA and local sourcing benefits such as RSPCA Australian beef & chicken and Organic Non-GMO USA meats in America.

- Global scale-up team in place with commercial capabilities in all main markets.

- Nottingham University food development team partnership with 3-yr pipeline of new foods..

- Significant proven PR success capability with highly driven founder mission and disruption story. 189 PR mentions in 2019 and multi-channel campaigns in 2020 incl. Damien Lee in Ch 5’s Rich House Poor House (5th April) and Penguin Random House publishing Mr Lee’s 100 Noodle Recipe cookbook in global markets.

- 50+ global awards and nominations incl. Grocer Gold Exporter of the Year, UK Great Taste, Great British Entrepreneur winner, The Sunday Times Maserati 100 winner, The Vendies Best Newcomer (Hot Noodle Kiosk), Ranked 52 in the Global Foodtech 500, plus many more.

- An investor base and board which includes leading food industry innovators, multinational foodco CEO, professional global emerging food investors, multi-national business and brand builders as well as a healthy crowd and employee participation.

Monetisation strategy

Revenues are generated through the sale of our noodles & congees in Australia, UK/Europe and we expect soon in the USA. Sales channels in all 3 global markets are expected to include B2B (retail, travel, wholesale) and B2C (DTC online website sales and Amazon seller-central). We now aim to rapidly build sales outlet numbers, increasing SKUs stocked per account and rates of sale per outlet, and adding key B2B partnerships.

From a solid foundation of food, team capabilities and established distribution channels to drive our scale up phase, we are implementing plans to increase sales through continuing to build our retail, convenience and B2B client footprint in USA, UK/Europe and Australia as well as our brand awareness and product range.

Kiosk division scale is intended to be built through partnerships with large foodservice and retailers with 2 major initiatives in 2020. Revenue share from product sales as well as other machine and screen based income streams are anticipated as scale grows.

Use of proceeds

Investment is to drive the scale-up phase of Mr Lee’s Pure Foods, particularly focusing on USA entry and further expansion, Congee launch, direct-to-consumer e-commerce and ongoing penetration into existing market channels. Funds raised have the following estimated allocation:

USA marketing/PR/multi-channel launch and ongoing marketing initiatives in 2020 (Building the number of outlets, rate of sale and contract clients as well as brand traction): 25%

Product development, new product initiatives and our ‘Food team’ - (Building SKU range for greater SKU’s stocked per outlet) - 10%

Working capital for food production during scale up (Filling contracts, e-commerce supply and new outlet and sku/outlet growth requirements): 20%

Hot Noodle Kiosk (Vending) machine programme to move to scale-up: 5%

Global group operating and personnel costs runway for commercial functions and scale up activity (Australia, UK, USA): 40%

The lead investor in this round is investing a total of £2.5m through multiple tranches, all at the same share price. A £500k tranche was received at the end of last year and a further £500k is expected to be invested in the second half of this year. These investments are not included in the campaign.

Please note that the company has £250k in loans. The funds raised in this rounds will not be used to pay these loans.