Following a 12-week accelerator program by Lion Unleashed, the 11 companies who participated were able to pitch their brands and innovative new ideas to a crowd of people and investors.
The program is ideal for businesses looking to gain an edge and get ahead of the game amongst the global food and beverage industry.
PERKii Probiotics, the QLD based company was one of the lucky businesses accepted into the program.
Lion CEO Stuart Irvine said: “Lion wants to have ideas from the edge, because we’re moving our business from being a 20th century business, to being a 21st century business.”
Lion partnered with Slingshot to bring the program to life.
Slingshot chief program director Ben Hutt said: “This event is a celebration of the end of 12 weeks, but it is the beginning of the rest of our lives.”
Welcoming PERKii CEO Matthew Kowal onto the stage to pitch, Mr Hutt said: “Now for something really healthy…PERKii has changed my life, it’s changed my family’s life.”
Mr Kowal spoke about the benefits of probiotics and how consumers health can be improved by the PERKii beverage.
Mr Kowal said aside from the original PERKii beverage there were already “several near market formats including, juice, sparkling, yogurt and ice cream ready to go”.
He also announced that by Summer 2018, the company will have expanded to both China and the US markets.
Speaking about the opportunity to be a part of the Lion Unleashed program Mr Kowal said: “The Lion Unleashed program has been a good experience for us, providing access to industry leaders in Lion, mentorship and coaching from experienced entrepreneurs at Slingshot and a significant recognition of our encapsulated probiotics as true innovation in the health drinks space.”
“I’d encourage start-up or scale-up businesses like ourselves to investigate accelerators that will best fit their goals but ensure you commit fully to the opportunity at hand if successful in application,” he said.
“Like most opportunities, the reward is correlation of the effort.”