A health food business owner who turned down £50,000 from the Dragons now runs a company worth £1.7 Million.

Mum-of-one Rimi Thapar, 34, said no to Dragons' Den's Deborah Meaden after she asked for a 30 per cent stake in her raw food firm LoveRaw.

"There was no way we were giving that much away," Rimi explained to the Manchester Evening News.

"All that time I spent building the business, doing 20-hour days, I just couldn’t give a big chunk of it away.

"We did want the investment, of course, but we weren’t in such a desperate position."

Rimi's business specialises in organic, gluten and dairy-free snacks and appeared on the show in 2017, although the episode was aired in February this year.

Rimi appeared on the BBC One show Dragons' Den looking for a £50k investment in her raw food firm

featured on the episode in 2017 but it only aired in February this year

After the show, Rimi, who's from Altrincham outside Manchester, put together an investment deck which valued her LoveRaw business at £1.7million.

She then raised the rest of the funds through angel investors.

Rimi was a banker for Merrill Lynch for seven years, before packing it in to join her husband Manav who was running a textile business in Spain.

While she was out there, her father died following a serious illness.

Through her grief, she started on a health food journey where she gave up gluten and eventually tried veganism.

It inspired her to turn her own health eating habits into a range of food and snacks that she could sell to help others.

But she struggled to set up the business in Spain due to the red-tape and bureaucracy so took the painful decision to move back to England while Manav stayed abroad.

Deborah Meaden wanted 30 per cent of the business but Rimi was only willing to part with 15 percent

It wasn't long before she outgrew the small kitchen offered to her by her in-laws in Altrincham and built a bigger one in their garage.

And not long after then, Rimi managed to land an order with Whole Food Earth in London.

Rimi said: "Ten days [after the pitch] he called and said he wanted 500. I thought "amazing, he wants 500 bars", but he actually meant 500 cases."

Rimi's business specialises in organic, gluten and dairy-free snacks

Since roping in her family to meet the order for 6,000 bars, LoveRaw is now stocked in 21 countries.

She said: "Appearing on the show was an amazing experience.

"It was very scary, it’s a very intimidating process. I walked in and saw these poker faces, the Dragons are looking right at you. All I was thinking was, don’t mess up, don’t scupper the pitch."

This article originally appeared on : The Sun