Levi Roots: How to Build a Brand People Don’t Just Buy – They Believe In
How does a Windrush child from Jamaica – who ended up in prison with a 9-year sentence – walk into Dragon’s Den and land one of the most successful deals in the show’s history? Levi Roots sits down with Adam Stott to share the extraordinary story behind Reggae Reggae Sauce, and the brand-building philosophy that made millions of people not just buy his sauce – but believe in him.
Levi Roots is the entrepreneur, musician, and cultural icon behind Reggae Reggae Sauce, one of the UK’s most recognisable food brands. After a famous appearance on BBC’s Dragon’s Den, he secured investment from Peter Jones and went on to build a licensing empire distributed across the UK, Ireland, and beyond.
They explain:
· Why people invest in people – not products – and how to make yourself the brand
· Why your passion is your biggest business asset, especially when things get hard
· Why the best thing Levi ever did was outsource the sauce and own the story
Download your FREE Start, Grow, Scale Roadmap in under 30 seconds: https://www.bigbusinessevents.com/roadmap
Chapters
· 00:00:00 Intro
· 00:00:42 Why Peter Jones Invested in Levi, Not the Sauce
· 00:03:18 The Windrush Story: Where It All Began
· 00:07:41 Coming to the UK and Finding His Identity
· 00:09:42 Following the Wrong Crowd and How Music Saved Him
· 00:11:50 Notting Hill Carnival and the Queue That Changed Everything
· 00:14:35 Selling Sauce Door-to-Door and the Dart That Hit Dragon’s Den
· 00:16:36 How a BBC Producer Spotted Him in the Shires
· 00:17:51 His Mum, Psalm 23, and “You’ll Come Back a Dragon Slayer”
· 00:19:23 The Sweat, the Prayer, and Peter Jones Swooping In
· 00:22:50 18 Years with Peter Jones: What He Really Learned
· 00:24:48 Outsourcing the Sauce and Licensing the Brand
· 00:25:37 Walking Into Sainsbury’s Before the Sauce Was Even Made
· 00:28:38 Meeting Nelson Mandela Fresh Out of Prison
· 00:30:09 Shakespeare in a Prison Cell: “Take the Current When It Serves”
· 00:35:28 What Personal Brand Really Means – and Why It Sells
· 00:38:12 The Impact of the Brand: Schools, Prisons, and Young Lives
Download your FREE Start, Grow, Scale Roadmap in under 30 seconds: https://www.bigbusinessevents.com/roadmap
Learn how to turn your brand from UNKNOWN to UNFORGETTABLE: https://www.bigbusinessevents.com/sob-live-online-290126-856162-6647
Hear from Adam and some of the country’s biggest entrepreneurs on how to SCALE your Business past £1 Million: https://www.bigbusinessevents.com/encore-240626-871977
Discover an exclusive support network designed to empower entrepreneurs and business owners: https://www.skool.com/bigbusinessentrepreneurs/about
Get Adam’s tell-all book about building Million Pound Success: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1913839575?ref=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cp_ud_dp_XX98PTMZ0QGJG81Q22ZR&ref_=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cp_ud_dp_XX98PTMZ0QGJG81Q22ZR&social_share=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cp_ud_dp_XX98PTMZ0QGJG81Q22ZR&bestFormat=true
Transcript:
Please note this is a verbatim transcription from the original audio and therefore may include some minor grammatical errors.
00:00:00:02 – 00:00:18:02
Unknown
The most well known person that’s ever been on Dragon’s Den, so it’s been one of the most successful investments ever in Dragon’s Den history.
00:00:18:04 – 00:00:42:18
Unknown
Peter Jones swooped down like a bloody angel. A phoenix from the flame. He never invested in the sauce, by the way. He invested in Levi Roots.
00:00:42:20 – 00:01:04:15
Unknown
It’s called sauce, which is a Jamaican culture. And that’s what I wanted to sell. I didn’t want to try to do anything that wasn’t part of who I was as a person, because people buy into you.
00:01:04:17 – 00:01:40:23
Unknown
And now I’m happy to say that, you know, our sauce is now available in almost every stores and every shop across the UK.
00:01:41:00 – 00:02:03:09
Unknown
I think one of the worst moment is when Theo rumbled my name, because I remember when I was in school and I started my first band and I was thinking that I needed a really cool name to because my father had given me this bloody name of of a bit a merger between a Scottish warlord and the greatest lover ever I’ve ever of Keith Valentine Graham.
00:02:03:11 – 00:02:25:15
Unknown
And I just thought that, you know, I’m never going to I’m not never going to going to go and jack insane and reveal what my real name is. And then Theo just came up with Levi roots. What a wonderful name. Is that your real name? And it was at that point I just thought, Please God, dig a hole in the ground and swallow me up, because I’m going to have to admit to the live television that my name is fucking Keith.
00:02:25:17 – 00:02:31:16
Unknown
So if there’s any. Keith’s in the house, guys.
00:02:31:18 – 00:02:54:22
Unknown
I know it’s brilliant and it’s so interesting to watch that back because, you know, you’ve got Deborah Meaden saying this is going to be a good business for you, but no one else, you know, and and you’ve absolutely proved her wrong, you know, and other people that that went out Duncan and Theo and it’s gone on to be, you know, gigantic in terms of the, you know, one of the best and biggest investments ever.
00:02:55:00 – 00:03:18:17
Unknown
And what’s really interesting, when people talk about investment, they say back the man or back the woman. And that’s really what I think Peter and Simon in that moment did is they look to your charisma, they look to your energy and the way that you told your story and communicated and wanted to back you, which is incredible. But there’s a there’s a there’s actually a much bigger story than just Dragons Den, right?
00:03:18:18 – 00:03:41:00
Unknown
You’ve there’s been some incredible things happened through your life, and we’ve got a huge room of business owners at different levels that have ups, that have downs, that have challenges. And I think if we were to go back to the beginning of where you you started from, you know, that would really communicate to them. So why don’t you give a bit of background and tell us about what happened.
00:03:41:00 – 00:04:04:07
Unknown
Fryer to to Dragon’s Den because there’s a big, big, big story there and it’d be really cool to explore. Yeah. No, absolutely. I was a Windrush child. My parents, my mom and dad was, you know, one of these immigrants that came over from Jamaica. It started in 1948 on the Windrush ship, as when immigration started in this country, my mom worked in the NHS.
00:04:04:08 – 00:04:37:07
Unknown
And by the way, 1948, when the first ship came, was at the start of the NHS. So a lot of these people that came from the Caribbean were instrumental in starting with the NHS. So my mom worked in King’s College Ospital in south London as a nurse for many, many years, and the plan back then when they came over was leaving six kids in Jamaica with my grandma, and the plan was to work really hard for them, for both of them, and every year they would send a suitcase over to bring one of us over.
00:04:37:07 – 00:04:43:16
Unknown
And I remember me being the youngest of of the in the suitcase.
00:04:43:18 – 00:05:07:24
Unknown
The source was in the. So literally the scenario was, you know, as being the youngest, the youngest was always the last to come over because the parents didn’t want a young child. And I was six at the time when my parents left. So I would be like out in the fields in her picking mangoes and everything and smelling my grandmother’s cooking, and she’d be doing this amazing sauce and singing these, these, you know, Caribbean songs.
00:05:07:24 – 00:05:13:11
Unknown
And I remember she’d be calling out Keith.
00:05:13:13 – 00:05:40:13
Unknown
And and I’ll be like, running out the cane fields coming home. And I would. The area was seeing my grandmother underwriting tears like literally crying. And on the other side I would see a brown suitcase, which we call a grip. Back in those days, and I didn’t really understand what was going on. I seen granny crying and I see the brown suitcase, but the reason why I didn’t recognize what was happening because we all slept in one big bed, you know, all of us six kids and my granny.
00:05:40:13 – 00:06:12:01
Unknown
And being the youngest, I was always at the end of the bloody bed. And every morning I woke up. I’m on the floor because my brothers and sisters would be like nudging me out of the bloody bed. So when I saw the suitcase and see granny, the only thing I could think of is robbing mines to get in and say yes, more room in the bed for me, because I realized that that sign crying granny and the suitcase was that one of my brothers and sisters would be leaving to come to the UK, and it went on for about five years until finally I came out from out the fields in the same way.
00:06:12:02 – 00:06:32:24
Unknown
Smell my granny’s food, running home to heat the food, saw in tears and I saw the brown suitcase. And just as I was about to put my hands together and said more room in the bed for me, I realized that all my brothers and sisters left off, and I was the last one that was left. It was the most terrible part of my life, because I never thought that I would leave this woman.
00:06:32:24 – 00:06:49:07
Unknown
I was too young to really understand that I’m going to have to go to the UK and never come back and see her, because she was that. She was mom, dad, the cat and the dog, everything to me. She was all I knew because I didn’t really know my mum and dad when they left the when I was at the age of six.
00:06:49:07 – 00:07:12:16
Unknown
So that part of knowing that now I’m going to have to leave her. It was the saddest moment of my life. I think what she gave me in the brown suitcase when I left was some mangoes, and she packed the key ingredients in all jerk sauce. It was called pimento, or in the real terms, or spice. For those who don’t know it.
00:07:12:17 – 00:07:41:09
Unknown
She put a little sachet of all spice in the back because that was the key in what she made. Everything that we ate was always in this source that she made, and she packed the Old Spice and some mangoes in the suitcase. And I came to the UK to meet my mum and dad, who I didn’t really know because I said at the age of six, and someone because I think it was about seven years before I eventually came back, came over and reconnected with mum and dad.
00:07:41:10 – 00:08:09:03
Unknown
So I had a really bad time. When I came over, I couldn’t connect to my brothers and sisters because they all spoke bloody English and I was speaking in this raw, backward type of everybody was let pardon, pardon, pardon couldn’t understand the bloody word I was saying. What took me a long time to sort of get involved in the UK and find myself and then having to go into school and not realizing that we were coming from in Jamaica.
00:08:09:04 – 00:08:31:21
Unknown
There wasn’t anything like racism there because I had to fit in. Coming from a place like, you know, Clarendon in Jamaica where there wasn’t racism, there was classism. And then I realized that when I got into Tulsa Comprehensive School in Brixton that, you know, on one side, you had this great set of white people that was loving me and loving reggae music and loving the food and everything.
00:08:31:21 – 00:08:49:05
Unknown
But on the other hand, there was a lot of people because skinhead that wanted to rip my bloody head off. So it was having to get used to that kind of stuff, like this new world and this new place, which I, which I lived in and this my granny a lot. So I was crying as a young kid, you know, wandering that.
00:08:49:06 – 00:09:05:19
Unknown
Is there a chance that I can get back to Jamaica and get to that loving arms of my grandma and be with her? But she passed away, unfortunately, when I was about 16, and I never got to see her again. But I don’t know that memory of the, you know, of her cooking and the songs that she was singing.
00:09:05:21 – 00:09:14:19
Unknown
That’s really what is inspired me much more later on in life. Oh, I’m the spirit of.
00:09:14:21 – 00:09:42:20
Unknown
And it’s and it’s amazing because you brought that spirit and that and that character over here in a big way. So when when you go on this journey of going through, going through school, wanting, did you always want to be an entrepreneur? Because when you went on to dragons, then obviously you had a very different things. What were some of the things you tried and perhaps failed at, or what some of the other struggles you had, maybe in jobs or getting into business?
00:09:42:21 – 00:10:06:01
Unknown
What happened to you? What led to to that transitional point? Well, really, the scenario is still the same now for some kids that lives in certain postcodes area. And we all know what happens there with post-Cold War and kids getting knife and gun crime and all that. I think your postcode determines how you turn out in life. I wasn’t a leader.
00:10:06:01 – 00:10:42:14
Unknown
I was a follower. Mainly because again, when I came over, it was such a struggle to try to to get in tune with my school friends and not to be this kid who who couldn’t sort of link up with them. So I followed them through everything that they did, which was the wrong thing to do. But it was a good thing that I had this amazing mother who was a bit a carbon copy of my grandma, her mum, who saw that I really struggled and she went down to Brixton when I was 16 at the time, just about to leave school, she went down to Brixton and they had this shop called Exchange and Mart
00:10:42:15 – 00:11:02:22
Unknown
and she knew that I loved music again. That was taken from my grandma was a great singer in the Baptist church. And, you know, I picked up music from her and my mum saw that I was struggling, that I was following kids, and I was getting into a lot of trouble. And she paid 500 pounds for this same guitar.
00:11:02:24 – 00:11:27:10
Unknown
Well, this one’s retired here. This is the original guitar that I took on dragons. Then she brought this guitar and she brought a Beatles book of songs that just showed you how to hold the chords of a guitar. You know, it just shows you where to put your fingers, you know? And she. She gave me the book and she gave me the guitar and 500 pounds of my mum back in those days was like a huge amount of money.
00:11:27:16 – 00:11:50:23
Unknown
And she bought the guitar because she wanted me to focus, and it was me learning myself how to play the guitar and teaching myself how to write songs. And and really, the music was the thing that really got me out of trouble. It was music that I focused on. The plan B was always the sauce and the cooking, because that was something else that I took from my grandma.
00:11:50:23 – 00:12:15:21
Unknown
But the music was one of the first things for me was that it was my main passion, and I was lucky enough to join a sound system back in those days called Coxon and back in Brixton, and it was the music of the sound system that really got me around the world. I got nominated for Mobo Awards with my music, with my music, and I thought that I would always live on the stage, you know, that was going to be everything to me.
00:12:15:22 – 00:12:41:09
Unknown
But I wasn’t making enough money in the music business, but I was doing the Notting Hill Carnival. Every anybody has been to the carnival. Yes. So I did the carnival for many years and I, I bought a stall at the carnival every August, and I decided to give the stall a real cool name, because everybody had a real name for the stall, you know, chicken stall and all kind of different name.
00:12:41:09 – 00:12:46:23
Unknown
And I called my stall the restaurant.
00:12:47:00 – 00:13:09:05
Unknown
The restaurant. And I will be like the singing songs. And this was the song that I wrote again, the same, but some music in my food for me. And always when I got to the verse of So Nice with your fried chicken, make burgers finger lickin on your barbecue on your drumsticks, put some reggae reggae sauce on your dish.
00:13:09:06 – 00:13:33:14
Unknown
It always got the crown, always got the crowd. And I tell you what. Every year at the carnival, my cue was so long that everybody else had the ump with me. They literally hate him because you’ve be looking at all the stores, you know, on Westbourne Park Road and if we were at is empty. But you look at the various restaurant and the queue would be like be going for miles down.
00:13:33:14 – 00:13:58:17
Unknown
And it was there that I knew that I had to ditch the music as the main passion for me. But I think what I did was that the next cool thing was not to ditch the music completely. I decided to merge these two passions. I put the two passions and I say to people, now you know, if you are doing a business, make sure you have your passion in it.
00:13:58:17 – 00:14:15:02
Unknown
Because in those early days when things are not going to well for you, because it does take time for the business to move on. It’s the passion that really keeps you going. And even though I didn’t, you know, make any money from it for a very long time, but it was the passion of mine to be able to do it.
00:14:15:02 – 00:14:35:05
Unknown
And I did the carnival for many years and it was a success there. I remember going to an event where I decided to go, well, I tried to sell the sauce in my local Brixton, first of all, you know, packaged up, spent all our money with the kids and my kids will make it in my flat at Brixton.
00:14:35:05 – 00:14:59:10
Unknown
And we decided to our first batch. We start great. We live in a Caribbean area. Everyone’s going to buy it. So my kids would pack the sauce in a bag that I had, and I would jump on a bicycle and right down to Brixton Market and got there and nobody brought it. It was like people saying, leave, I don’t sell us no bloody Jamaican jerk sauce, because you’re forgetting we’re all bloody Jamaicans here.
00:14:59:12 – 00:15:25:20
Unknown
I can make our own sources and I didn’t, I didn’t really packed on that, you know what I mean? And it was the failure of no one buying it and your own people sort of telling you that they make their own sources. So I went home and one of my son’s threw a dart at a map of England that we had in my in my front room in Brixton, and it landed in a place called Cameron Shire.
00:15:25:22 – 00:15:44:04
Unknown
So I just said to the kids, look, we’re going to go ahead and we’re in the UK, that bloody shire at the name at the end of the name, because there’s no black restaurant looking like the liver in them Shire type places. So off we went to the shires, ladies and gentlemen.
00:15:44:06 – 00:16:09:21
Unknown
With the guitar and the sources. And in some places, you know, we would drive up and I would like, you know, trying to source and knock on some, some doors and you can imagine the looks and the fucking responses are from some people in the science. What? I actually went to a Saturday market in the size and I was there, I was singing the song and I was just like, you know, getting to that same verse again and everyone’s laughing and having a great time.
00:16:09:21 – 00:16:35:23
Unknown
And there was a lady at the in the audience, and she came over at the end of my performance. She says, I absolutely amazing. Love the sauce, love the song. And she dipped in her pocket and she brought her business card and she says, would you like to be in Dragon’s Den? And handed me the card? So I was just like, what the fuck is this Dragon’s den?
00:16:36:00 – 00:17:05:20
Unknown
Never seen the program, never heard of it. She says, oh, Levi, you know, absolutely do take the business card. And if somebody do tell you about what Dragon’s Den is, then do give me a call. So I took the card and never refused a business card, by the way. So I put the card in my pocket. I went home and my kids saw because they pack away the cards when I come home from the shires and they put it in a card thing, they saw the BBC card with the ladies name was producer and the term Dragon’s Den on it.
00:17:05:20 – 00:17:26:20
Unknown
And my daughter Charlene, she was jumping up and down, you know, daddy’s dragon’s den. Will you get someone like, what the hell is this Dragon’s den? And then my kids all said in unison, dad, whatever you do, don’t do bloody Dragon’s den because no Rasta, no Rastaman is not going to be going on the Dragon’s Den and become no dragon slayer.
00:17:26:20 – 00:17:51:18
Unknown
But I said that. Look, it gives me a chance to sing the song. It’s like that. Don’t go and sing that, Reggie. Reggie saw seven dragons. Then nobody would have it. I went around to all my friends and I tell him the same thing. I’ve been offered to go on the show Dragon’s Den, and I feel like I want to go and sing this song now I leave, I don’t sing no bloody song and Dragon’s Den.
00:17:51:20 – 00:18:10:22
Unknown
So I went to see my mum. For me, the guitar. Inspirational, just like my grandma and I knocked on the door. And like most moms, when they know you’re coming round to ask some money, they know what to do. So. Especially Caribbean moms. I knocked on the door and I was just about to tell them, mom, I’m going on to Jack.
00:18:10:23 – 00:18:26:08
Unknown
She said, go and pick up the Bible. I said, mom, look, I’m going on the most important journey of my life and this is just going to change my life. She says, go and pick up the bloody Bible. So I was just like, okay, mom, let me pick up the Bible and see what’s going on. So I picked up the Bible.
00:18:26:10 – 00:18:51:03
Unknown
So I’m like, open the Bible. And I’ve gone to Psalm 23 and I’m start reading. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. She says, stop there. She says, if you go on Dragon’s Den and you be you, the person that loves his music, loves his grandmother’s stories, and loves her source, you will come back as a dragon slayer.
00:18:51:05 – 00:19:23:20
Unknown
And I was just like, damn mom, let’s like some lyrics there, you know, somebody come back as a drug and slayer. She says, be you be the best of you. So I went on, I went up, went on the show, I brought the guitar and I sang. And as you heard five dragons on there. The only first negative person I had was Bloody Deborah and the only woman on the show.
00:19:23:22 – 00:19:49:01
Unknown
That said that there is no business in the source. And at that point, I got to say, if you saw the clip, you will see that the sweat on my face, you could have you could have built a pseudonym pool with a sweat on my face. So the BBC said, Levi, do you think that you want a moment to go and have a little sort of chill out before you come back on stage?
00:19:49:04 – 00:20:14:23
Unknown
And I said yes. So I went to the back of the stage to have a little prayer. I didn’t say the Psalm 23, but I was thinking about one person in particular, and that was my grandma. I name is Mirian. I was thinking to her, wondering because I knew what I was about to do with a recipe for the sauce.
00:20:15:00 – 00:20:37:05
Unknown
So I went to the back of the room just to pray to my grandma, because I knew that I’m going to have to give away a bit more than what I had planned to do, because it’s, you remember, 20% is what I what I plan to do. And I went to have a little pray to my grandmother just to get a blessing that I was going to do the right thing.
00:20:37:06 – 00:21:21:16
Unknown
And I came back on. And it was the most amazing thing, because even though all five dragons, you know, we’re not too bad. But I think the honesty about me, I think with the numbers and stuff was perhaps the key thing. But the main thing was my favorite dragon, six feet, seven tall, wearing stripy socks. He saw that I was struggling with the questions and the numbers and everything, and the great Peter Jones swooped down like a bloody angel of Phoenix from the flame, and it felt like he just swooped me up in those giant arms of his.
00:21:21:18 – 00:21:58:06
Unknown
He never invested in the sauce, by the way he invested in Levi Roots. Whereas Richard Farley, the other dragon and God bless his soul. And I’m so grateful that he did invest. But I think Richard invested in the source because it was just 18 months after Dragon’s Den. When I’d woken up that morning, got into Dragon’s Den. We’d just been an ordinary guy from Brixton, and I woke up the next morning being the most famous black man that didn’t kick a ball or run fast.
00:21:58:08 – 00:22:25:00
Unknown
Richard Farley wanted to sell his shares because everybody wanted to buy my shares at the time, but I had I had something called a preemption rights in the deal with Richard that we had to offer it to me first, just 18 months after. So I paid him 25,000 pounds for 20%. And to Richard Farley, 25,000 is like a lunch break to him.
00:22:25:02 – 00:22:50:00
Unknown
So 18 months, 25,000. I had to pay Richard 250,000 for my 20% back. So I brought my shares back from Richard and I was just Peter and I just on this romance of this sauce now and everything like that. And it’s been such a fantastic journey. It just really is to see the two of us, which is very old.
00:22:50:00 – 00:23:12:09
Unknown
Peter, I think Peter would never, you know, have a friend of like a Jed lox Rastaman from Brixton. That relationship that we’ve had so far has just been amazing. It’s just been the most coolest thing that I could ever think of. Two people from two different, you know, side of the world, of the way that we were brought up.
00:23:12:13 – 00:23:26:23
Unknown
And the business has just been absolutely fantastic. How long have you been with Peter now? How long has since? Well, we’re celebrating 18 years.
00:23:27:00 – 00:23:54:07
Unknown
What are some of the things, Levi, that you’ve learned from him that have been able to to help you through the ups and downs and, and everything? Has there been some moments and pieces of advice that have really lifted you? Yeah, there have been some. But I think to be fair, Peter’s investment is, as I said earlier, wasn’t about the source or about business because he knew that you don’t know all about Caribbean sources and and stuff like that.
00:23:54:07 – 00:24:14:14
Unknown
So he couldn’t help in that respect. I think that was all done down to me. But one of the key things that I did learn from Peter was that because I went into then thinking that, you know, the most important thing that I needed to know was to get the money. But I quickly realized in that getting money is not the main thing that I needed.
00:24:14:16 – 00:24:48:12
Unknown
The key thing was learning how to use the money. Should I be so lucky to get my hands on it? And that 50,000 pounds that I got from Dragon’s Den? I still don’t have that on my balance right now because we never spent it at all. It still was there because the key thing that we did about getting the sauce out there, and this came from Peter, actually, Peter said that we need to outsource the business, which was a outsource, I know, yes.
00:24:48:14 – 00:25:14:00
Unknown
He just said we need to outsource the sauce. The sauce, what sauce? The sauce. And I think that was the best thing that we’ve ever done, because what it did was just now alone. We’ve had over 50 products on the brand so far, and I don’t have any factories. I don’t know any of that. The only thing that we have is just this amazing brand that we have is the Levi Roots brand, and that could be a route for anybody with just starting out.
00:25:14:00 – 00:25:37:08
Unknown
And because it’s a fantastic way about to get from A to Z in one go. But the key thing is having to build the brand first. Yeah. You know, and then we could have walked into any sort factory in the country. And we did. We went to see Justin King, the chief of Sainsbury’s, and Peter and I went to see Justin B, even before the sauce was manufactured.
00:25:37:08 – 00:26:00:07
Unknown
And I remember us being in the, in the factory in, in sorry, in the Saints Bistro in Alberton. And Peter and Justin is having a little chat about getting the sauce into Sainsbury’s. And I remember standing outside the door, you know, just again sweating like I always did and is on a little chat. And I had left the kids at home doing the sauce.
00:26:00:13 – 00:26:27:20
Unknown
And the perfect batch of reggae. Reggae sauce is 67 bottles to the perfect batch. So the kids were at home, you know, churning the sauce. It’s so nice, I have to. We always sing to someone, we’re making the sauce. So 6 to 7 bucks, they’re making that home. And I remember vividly Peter’s having a chat with Justin King of Mouth sauce, and Justin King comes out of the office and he says, oh, leave my absolutely fantastic.
00:26:27:22 – 00:26:49:18
Unknown
Sainsbury’s is going to make a nice investment into your into your Reggie Reggie sauce. And you couldn’t even penance reggae at the time for our Justin. He’s going to make a nice investment in the sauce. So all I could think of is to myself is that please God, don’t make him order anything over 67 bottles because we hadn’t started any manufacturing or anything yet.
00:26:49:19 – 00:26:58:20
Unknown
So Justin walks out of the office and he says, Levi, could you please deliver 250,000 bloody buckets of the set?
00:26:58:22 – 00:27:20:16
Unknown
What do you do when that happens? You know, it’s some you know, you’re making 67 bucks. Then someone comes along and says they’ll have quarter million of the sources. It was just a conundrum to me. So Peter just said outsourcing. So we just walked into the biggest source company that there is, B Royal Foods Association of British Royal Foods.
00:27:20:17 – 00:27:46:00
Unknown
And the gentleman that owns the Abbey World food is a gentleman called George Weston, one of the richest men in the country, does lots of charities and what have you, and a byword for duds does Jordans. Biscuit, Cayton, Lyle, sugar, Patak, sources and literally everything when it comes to supermarkets. And we walked into George Weston’s office and George Weston did the same thing.
00:27:46:01 – 00:28:12:19
Unknown
He’d love to invest in the sauce. So we signed off the Levi Roots brand to to them to manufacture the sources and to distribute. And we gave Sainsbury six months exclusivity with the sauce. And it was great to do an exclusive deal because it just allowed everybody to, to know where they’re going to go and get it. And after that six months, we rolled it out to the rest of the rest of the supermarkets.
00:28:12:20 – 00:28:38:10
Unknown
And now, you know, I’m happy to say that, you know, our sauce is now available in almost every stores and every shop across the UK, wherever you are, whether you’re in Ireland, Scotland, whereas or what have you, it is the only Caribbean brand that is distributed right across the range and it makes me really happy. We had a really good conversation about you meeting Nelson Mandela.
00:28:38:11 – 00:28:59:05
Unknown
Oh oh man, what a story, what a story. And I’d love. And you were coming out of some difficult circumstances at the time. I was, Why don’t you was a bit of a background on that? Because I think it really what is shows is the dedication to putting yourself out there, not having fear. Pushing forward just feels incredible.
00:28:59:06 – 00:29:21:19
Unknown
Right. And I think a lot of people could benefit from your. And a little bit about that. No. Again, it was it was one of the most inspirational part of my life and perhaps one of the most dreadful times that I did have got through 1986. I was sentenced to a very long time in prison. I had a nine year sentence, and none of my friends thought I would ever come back from that.
00:29:21:21 – 00:29:43:15
Unknown
I think the only person that really believed that I could come back from that was my was my mum again, because she’d been on that journey with me, with the music and with the guitar. And I remember having my first mentor while I was inside of prison, and it was a fantastic lady called Theresa. She was. She was from New Zealand.
00:29:43:16 – 00:30:09:13
Unknown
Yeah. And she was like a teacher that came into the prison and helped to kind of motivate, you know, prisoners and change their lives. And what I cut her story short, even though she’s absolutely fantastic. I remember her coming to my cell and throwing in because she wasn’t allowed to come in. She threw in the full works of Shakespeare into my cell and she says, read that, but read or fellow.
00:30:09:15 – 00:30:44:09
Unknown
And she says, read Julius Caesar. And one of Julius Caesar’s main, main sort of saying is when Brutus said, there is a tide in the affairs of men, taking up the floods will lead to fortune omitted. All the days of your lives could be deemed in shallows and in miseries, but on such a full sea, or we know afloat, and we must take the current when it serves or lose our ventures.
00:30:44:10 – 00:31:19:17
Unknown
And I think what Theresa was saying to me about that Brutus saying is that take the current when it serves, is that when your chance comes, even in your lives of owning businesses, when you get that opportunity, you’re going to grab it with both hands. And it’s always at the most difficult times because Brutus says, take the current when it serves, meaning that if you’re going to sail your boat of your desert island when you’re trapped, you can’t get off on when the tide is low, when things are nice and easy, more likely the tide is going to take you only when the tide is high.
00:31:19:19 – 00:31:40:03
Unknown
And I think what my mentor was saying is that this opportunity of me being banged up is the time for me to change my life and become that Levi rules, that I that I want to be. She saw a lot of potential. She saw the potential and she through Shakespeare and through music, and that she sort of helped to change my life.
00:31:40:03 – 00:32:03:21
Unknown
And I remember when I was released, after five years of that sentence, it was just a different me that came out. It wasn’t the follower Levi Roots that was following all my friends and doing because I wanted to be so cool, and doing all other kind of stuff that I didn’t want to reject. My friends. I was now me and I was the proper me, the best of me, the best version of myself.
00:32:03:21 – 00:32:22:02
Unknown
And I remember coming out and I was going to see my mom again, going to her house. And when I got inside of her, she said to me, that says, go and see the man. And again I’m saying, mum, who’s the man were you talking about? She says, go and see. The man is down the road. This is Nelson Mandela.
00:32:22:05 – 00:32:44:09
Unknown
He had come to Brixton and he was there with Prince Charles on his birthday. She says, go and see the man. So I get at my door and I started to walk down a clean and towards the Brixton Recreation Center to see Nelson Mandela. And it was just like the road was full of thousands of people just marching down to the to recreation center to see this great man.
00:32:44:10 – 00:33:06:18
Unknown
At the time the Mandela was passed, the most well-known man in the world, and he’d come to our hometown. And I remember being near the stage and one of the security guards, because it was Mandela’s birthday, and one of the security guards saw me in the audience, and they were looking for someone to sing up your birthday, like people to sort of be choir and secure to.
00:33:06:19 – 00:33:40:01
Unknown
God said, There is Levi who would bring him up on stage. And I was just like, you know, unbelievable. So the crowd kind of crowd surfed me to the front of the stage, you know, sealing me up all over the place and stuff. And I eventually were just like you surfed onto the stage of the recreation center. And as Mandela and Prince Charles is coming down the escalator, you know, from where he was talking to some kids upstairs in the rec, I’m stood at the bottom of the escalator with this birthday cake singing happy Birthday, Mr. President.
00:33:40:02 – 00:33:51:01
Unknown
A bit like Marilyn Monroe, the quivering lips and everything. I was like, I p birthday, Mr. President.
00:33:51:03 – 00:34:16:05
Unknown
It’s amazing. He shook my hand and, you know, says thank you and everything. And it was another moment for me to say that, okay, I’ve gone through the worst part of me. I’ve taken the current when it serves, and I’m not going to lose my advantage on the tide of the audience from the tide. Yeah. And literally. And I’m not going to lose this moment in this, this change moment of minds.
00:34:16:07 – 00:34:38:22
Unknown
And it was then that the turning point of my life, my turn. It was just maybe a few months after that that I started my stall at the Notting Hill Carnival. And the rest of the trajectory just been an absolutely amazing time since then. I mean, I might even.
00:34:38:24 – 00:35:03:17
Unknown
And I think, you know, for for everybody in the room, everybody is at different stages. But if you keep putting yourself forward and you keep pushing on, eventually you create your own opportunities. And I think, like you said, you’ve got yourself into, you know, hanging out with the wrong people, creating the wrong results. You stop being a follower, started being a leader, and then you started to lead yourself to the results, which was, you know, incredible.
00:35:03:19 – 00:35:28:03
Unknown
And now the the business of crazy with Peter has gone on to, you know, do you know, tens and tens of millions of pounds worth of sales. It’s been one of the most successful investments ever in Dragon’s Den history. Your hats, the social and the most well-known person that’s ever been on Dragon’s Den. And that’s not just because of the products, it’s because of the brand, and it’s because of the charisma and the energy.
00:35:28:04 – 00:35:45:22
Unknown
You built that personal brand. What I’d like to ask you about the branding side of it is, did you ever have any fears around putting yourself out there? Did you ever hold yourself back? Did you overthink those things or or did you just say, I’m just going to keep pushing forward, keep going and have those conversations and talk to me a little bit about personal brand.
00:35:45:23 – 00:36:06:20
Unknown
What do you perceive it to be for everybody in this room? Well, I’ve got to say that I always wanted the brand to be about that change of who I am as a person. When I felt like I was the best leverage that I could be, and I didn’t want to sell the source, I didn’t want to say that was in the bottle.
00:36:06:24 – 00:36:38:16
Unknown
Yeah, I wanted to sell the experience of who I am as a person, and that’s why I merge the two things together of the music and the food, and gave the name reggae reggae Source. I think that was something else that I think a lot of people thought that I should change, and I even remember it when I first started and I had the name and I had the branding, because if you look at the bottle or even that back there, you will see the colors of it is green, golden red, green, golden red is the color of Rastafari, which I am a Rastaman.
00:36:38:17 – 00:37:01:17
Unknown
When you look at it, you see a raft on it. It’s called reggae reggae source, which is quintessentially a Jamaican culture. And that’s what I wanted to sell. I didn’t want to try to do anything that wasn’t part of who I was as a person, because people buy into you. And I mean, even though, you know, businesses are not that way in clarinet because this is very personal to me.
00:37:01:17 – 00:37:23:21
Unknown
But I still always say to people, make the business be about you because the product cannot sell itself. It doesn’t matter how good the sauce is on the inside of the bottle, it still cannot sell itself. It will take somebody to be able to sell it. And again, you know, you know, I’m always talking about Peter because he’s the most fantastic person that I that I know.
00:37:23:23 – 00:37:45:01
Unknown
But I think that when he said that he never invested in the sauce, invested in Levi, I think that was a moment for me. That was a vindication of me keeping with the colors and keeping with the name, and didn’t try, you know, to call it something, you know, frivolous. Like Levi Roots, his grandmother’s at Scotch Bonnet pepper sauce.
00:37:45:02 – 00:38:12:06
Unknown
Yeah. You know, which is what I think a lot of people thought that I should have. I should have done. And not to have it like this. I think people were thinking that it’s going to put off a lot of people buying it because it was too culturally inclined. But again, I wanted people to buy of my culture, and now when they buy regular guest source, they’re not just buying the sauce on the inside, they’re buying a part of who I am as a person as well to bring stuff.
00:38:12:06 – 00:38:42:12
Unknown
And the impact of that. You having that brand, what do you think it’s done? How important is that, that brand element, the story that you’ve built. Oh, man. Listen, I’ve been to almost every school in the United Kingdom. It’s been 18 years. And sometimes, like two schools a day, I’ve been given three doctorates, tons of fellowships. I’ve. I’ve done the Oxford debate three times.
00:38:42:12 – 00:39:16:21
Unknown
I’ve visited Eton over four times. I’ve been to almost every university across the UK. It’s been amazing the way young people has taken to the brand and and as kind of took in something from it. I do tonnes of visitors every year and that kids are doing the next journey of their life on, on my story. And it’s been it’s been a warming thing to see that it’s normally when you pass the age of 25, young people don’t want to really know nothing about you at all.
00:39:17:00 – 00:39:41:00
Unknown
But it’s just been something that’s been magical, that the way young people has taken, taken to the brand. And for me, I enjoy it. I enjoy the fact that when I primary school from somewhere in the shires or wherever, you know, caught up and says, you know, come and have a chat to them about about the product and about the business and stuff like that, because I’m hoping that it will do something for them, not now, but within the future.
00:39:41:00 – 00:39:57:02
Unknown
But we’ll also educate some of the kids that I go to when I go to prisons, when I go to Feltham, Young Institution prisoner I, when I go to some of these hardcore prisoners and have a chat with them and saying that you can change your life, you know, because if I can do it, then anyone can do it.
00:39:57:02 – 00:40:13:17
Unknown
And it’s just brilliant when I do go in and I, and I get the feedback from some of these people who has never been touched by somebody who’s at the journey, you know, of what I’ve had before. So I give my life up to doing that. You know, I don’t do much to do with the business because it’s a licensing business.
00:40:13:17 – 00:40:41:00
Unknown
So for me, it’s not about going to a factory and doing all that kind of stuff like that. It just really to to be myself and try to change people’s lives with my story and talk to them about my journey.
00:40:41:02 – 00:40:47:11
Unknown
adversity and really being able to keep pushing herself and not allow failure, hiccups or setbacks.
00:40:47:11 – 00:40:59:11
Unknown
It really is a true tale of resilience and drive that built this incredible story for demeanor. I know you’re going to love it. I think you’re going to get some serious value from it. So make sure you go ahead and listen to the next podcast with the venom A call.