Sydney Chasin scooped £1,000 of funding at the recent
Scottish Institute for Enterprise (SIE) Awards in Glasgow as part of the organisation’s annual
Fresh Ideas competition.
Sydney, who has developed her own healthy snack alternative to popcorn which uses sorghum, was one of five young entrepreneurs out of nearly 400 applicants to win the prize after coming out on top in an extensive application and pitching process. Four other entrepreneurs also won awards of £250 each.
Fresh Ideas, which celebrates Scotland’s young enterprise talent, is hosted by SIE, an organisation funded by the Scottish Government to inspire entrepreneurial ventures in students and recent graduates to build on enterprise skills for their working lives.
Sydney said: “SIE’s Fresh Ideas competition has given me invaluable skills and ideas I can now use to turn my snack food company into a reality. The experience has given me the confidence in the concept and I firmly believe it is something we can introduce to the market in the near future.”
An Edinburgh Napier graduate in
financial services with entrepreneurship, Sydney was inspired to start her own business after completing her studies and became the first recipient of the University’s graduate entrepreneurship visa sponsorship.
Her product – Lil’ Pop – is a healthy snack that uses a crop called sorghum to produce an alternative to popcorn. Sydney’s company – Healthy Snack Food Company – currently operates out of Edinburgh Napier’s Bright Red Triangle incubator at Merchiston as she gears up to bring Lil’ Pop to a commercial market.
Sydney added: “At the moment I’m completed focused on scaling up production of my product so that I can begin to introduce it to a commercial market. I’ve been talking to manufacturers and grain suppliers from all over the world; this is really the exciting stage when I will really get to see my dream become a reality.
“The support from Bright Red Triangle has been invaluable to me – there is always someone there to answer questions, from VAT questions to places for funding, they really cover everything. The incubator is such a hot bed of start-up talent; it’s a great place to work from and I look forward to going into the office every day.”