Victoria Omobuwajo: the Londoner who built her Gordon Ramsay-approved business from scratch

But not before learning some hard lessons about how to run a business.

At age 26, Victoria was in her final year at Bayes Business School, City St George’s studying a bachelor’s degree in Accounting and Finance, working 40 hours a week as a healthcare assistant and managing her rapidly growing business.

After dreaming up the idea to put African food on the map, she used the University’s entrepreneur and startup service CityVentures to develop Sunmo Snacks.

Using her contacts from the investment bank she worked at during her student industry placement, Victoria raised £100k of investments to make her dream a reality.

She launched the new and improved product at a trade show in 2019 and within a year, her crisps were stocked in Sainsbury’s, Whole Foods Market and Selfridges.

“All this happened while in my final year at university and to be honest, I didn’t juggle it well. I completely burned out. I crashed my car. I don’t know how I managed but I made the decision to keep on going,” said Victoria.

After graduating, she was approached by the producers of a new TV show ‘Gordon Ramsay’s Future Foods.’

Following a year delay in filming due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Victoria began a gruelling 12-week process of battling it out to the final.

“The experience itself was very hard and emotionally draining. It’s entertainment for a TV audience, so everything is heightened.

“I have found the food industry to be quite supportive whereas on the show, everyone was fighting against each other. There were more swear words exchanged between contestants than Gordon which is crazy because everyone knows him for swearing,” she said.

But winning the show catapulted Sunmo Snacks to the next level, said Victoria who saw a spike in sales at the time.

Following Ramsay’s advice, Victoria expanded Sunmo to include a drinks range and she has since closed a funding round to expand the business further. As part of this round, £250k was committed but Victoria hopes to raise £2m in total.

"I want us to become a unicorn brand and reach the heights of being a household name,” she said. The business has been valued at £1.5m and Victoria is looking to attract venture capitalist investors.

Victoria said she is in talks with other major retailers in the UK to stock her products. On her journey to finding success, she said:

Every pack of Sunmo sold supports farmers, reduces waste and provides meals for children in Africa.

With the help of her “small but mighty” team of six, Victoria still works from City St George’s entrepreneurial 'Venture Space' to champion African flavours.

Venture Space is the City St George's incubator workspace seeking to support start-ups in the heart of the City of London. Venture Space welcomes entrepreneurs, students and alumni from the university as well as entrepreneurs from the City of London area, to make up the CityVentures startup ecosystem. Being part of the community comes with a wide range of benefits to help accelerate the growth of startups.