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What is Lion’s Den?

This competition is your chance to pitch your business, impress the judges and WIN a prize package that will drive your business forward with Bradley: The Brand Agency.

Bradley Local Enterprise Offices
Bradley
Local Enterprise Offices
Lion's Den

when

10 am - 1 pm
Wednesday
25 September
2024

where

Shelbourne Suite 4
The Talbot Hotel
Stillorgan, Dublin

How does it work?

  • Apply to enter into the Lion’s Den 2024
  • Shortlisted candidates will be invited to a networking and pitch tips event Cub Hub in the Bradley: The Brand Agency studio
  • Finalists pitch their business on stage at Lion’s Den 2024 to our panel of judges
  • Audiences attend this exclusive event and connect with finalists and industry leaders for just €15 per ticket
Who won in 2024?
Lion's Den
Lion's Den

Tell me about the prize!

€5,000 of agency spend with Ireland’s leading strategy-first brand agency Bradley: The Brand Agency.

PLUS €1,000 ad spend - that’s a whopping €6,000 prize package to be won!

LEARN MORE

Who can apply?

All Dublin-based food and drink producers with a product trading for over 1 year and less than 3 years.

We invite applicants from retail, e-commerce, direct to consumer, food service and more!

STAY TUNED
Lion's Den

Our Winners

Gary Clarkin

“It’s lovely to be recognised and tell the story to everyone.
All the feedback today was great from the contestants
and also everyone in the audience. And just to see
the positivity around.”

- Gary Clarkin, Founder of GOATS OATS, 2024 Winner

Patrick Nagle and Sunkyung Choi

“It's always nerve-racking doing one of these pitches. Just glad it went well and we got our information across.”

- Patrick Nagle, Co-founder of Born Again Bites, 2023 Start-up Award Winner

Rachel Byrne

“They all did amazingly really throughout pitches... It’s a great format of an event.”

- Rachel Byrne, Co-founder of Zingibeer, 2023 Excellence Award Winner

Patrick Joyce & Oliver Feeney

"The harder you work, the luckier you get.
Our progress today is a testament to that."

- Patrick Joyce, Co-founder of X-LITE, 2022 Winner

Shane Ryan

"It means a lot to us to have come and competed
against some incredible brands that we watched quite closely.
Winning Lion's Den is an acknowledgment of the work we
have put in and what we know we can be."

- Shane Ryan, Founder of Fiid, 2019 Winner

Séamus Tighe

"I like the sales part of the business, so I really
enjoyed Lion's Den at the Food & Drink Conference,
it was a great experience."

- Séamus Tighe, Founder of Everest Snacks, 2018 Winner

Kevin Kennedy

"To be fair the other teams were fantastic and they were
far ahead of us in terms of domestic sales but our company
is based on export. So we've had to invest time-consuming
into seeing how the export works and to see
if we can get it to scale."

- Kevin Kennedy, Founder of Anú Dairy, 2017 Winner

Noreen Doyle

“Winning first prize has totally transformed our business by
gaining placements in some of Europe’s largest retailers
in Ireland, the UK, Belgium and Germany. I would highly
recommend any start up food business to participate."

- Noreen Doyle, Co-founder of The Irish Biltong Co., 2016 Winner

Our Previous Participants

2024

2024
2024
2024
2024
2024

2023

2023
2023
2023
2023
2023
2023

2022

2022
2022
2022
2022

2019

2022
2022
2022
2022

2018

2022
2022
2022
2022

2017

2022
2022
2022
2022

2016

2022
2022
2022
2022

Our Lions for 2024

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Mary Morrissey linkedin

Mary is taking up Chair position on our panel of lions for this year’s event. In her everyday, she is in charge of the Prepared Consumer Food and Client Engagement sector within Bord Bia. Besides her valuable skills in supporting smaller businesses at the more vulnerable starting stages of growth, she has in-depth knowledge of the Irish food industry and the UK market. We look forward to her keen eye identifying the potential for success in scalability and export growth.

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Laura McCarthy linkedin

Laura is back after making it to the final stages of Lion’s Den 2018. She’s the founder of Drink Botanicals Ireland, an Irish company offering premium dried garnishes, natural syrups, and cocktail ancillaries. Her roaring business won multiple awards such as National Enterprise Awards 2024, Dublin City Enterprise Award 2024 and Outstanding Small Business SFA Award 2024. We’re very excited to welcome her back into the Lion’s Den!

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Santina Kennedy linkedin

Santina is a Food Consultant working with Irish food and drinks businesses and is actively committed to promoting and developing Irish food tourism. You may know her work from Forbes Magazine, The Irish Times, The Irish Independent, Food and Wine Magazine and the Irish Farmers Journal. Also working with artisan food businesses as an ambassador for Wicklow Naturally, we’re very happy to have her join our Lion’s Den this year.

andrew bradley
Andrew Bradley linkedin

Our Host and Ringmaster

Andrew is the founder of Bradley: The Brand Agency - Ireland’s first dedicated brand agency for Irish enterprises; specialising in brand strategy, creative, digital, retail and packaging design. 

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