A SMALL Worcestershire food business supplying healthy breakfast pots and snacks, which was conceived when its owner went through redundancy, has successfully achieved a crowdfunding goal and the chance to wow buyers at Britain’s biggest retailer Tesco.

Simplyseedz was founded and is run by former executive, wife and mum Cathryn Zielinski from Stock Green, near Droitwich, who started the enterprise in her kitchen after her full-time job was made redundant.

It began as a bit of an experiment seven years ago while she was looking for work. She was buying seed mixes from supermarkets and thought she could do better herself because they were expensive and contained a lot of cheap ingredients like sesame seeds.

Her children and their friends could not get enough of them so, without any experience in the industry, she started investigating how to set up a food business – registering with environmental health, studying food regulations and hygiene requirements.

Cathryn started selling her products at farmers markets and food festival and is always looking for new opportunities and openings. Her range of products is also available now at Gloucester Services, the prestigious Fenwick Food Hall in Newcastle, Daylesford Organic near Moreton-in-Marsh and is listed on Ocado and Amazon as well as her own Simplyseedz website.

She had been running the business while doing another job but last year set it up as a limited company. The business was recently selected for a crowdfunding opportunity with the Tesco Backit campaign and last week Cathryn reached her £3,000 target, just before the deadline.

In a last ditch bid to get sponsors she emailed people and used social media to appeal for the funds she needed. “I worked so hard with this and I thought it was not going to work. It was not a massive amount of money to get but I did not give up,” she said.

She added that she knows the majority of the sponsors – they are customers, friends and family who put their hands in their pockets. But there were some surprises too. She had two large pledges from people she did not know – one in Scotland and the other in Brighton. Other pledges came from an ex neighbour now living in Florida and others living in Spain and France.

Cathryn was thrilled to hit her target and that so many of her customers backed her. As soon as the campaign closed, Tesco contacted her to invite her to its headquarters in Welwyn Garden City for a Tesco Backit Engagement Day on April 20.

“I will be getting support from Tesco to expand my business and they are going to appoint a mentor to help me and there will be an opportunity for me to meet Tesco buyers. It is very exciting.”

If she and her products impress the supermarket giant, it could lead to an opportunity for her products to be stocked in Tesco stores.

In the meantime she will be sending her sponsors their rewards for contributing to her crowdfunding appeal.

“I am thrilled to have reached my target and extremely please I started something from absolutely nothing. It is still a very small business, but Rome wasn’t built in a day.”