The entrepreneur Levi Roots, who owes his success to an appearance on the BBC programme Dragon’s Den, is reportedly being sued by a former friend over the recipe for his best-selling product, Reggae Reggae sauce.
Roots, whose real name is Keith Valentine Graham, became a millionaire after persuading business moguls Richard Farleigh and Peter Jones to invest in his jerk chicken sauce on the hit BBC show. Immediately following his pitch on Dragon’s Den, Sainsbury’s agreed to sell his Reggae Reggae sauce in 600 of its stores, and the business has gone from strength to strength ever since.
However, Roots is now facing a lawsuit from his old friend Tony Bailey, with whom the entrepreneur used to work with on a food stall for 17 years. The pair are said to have sold jerk chicken sauces together at the Notting Hill carnival.
Bailey is claiming that the recipe for Reggae Reggae sauce is his, rather than being handed down through the family as Roots claims.
Although he is relatively new to the world of business, Roots is likely to have taken the advice of his more experienced investors and will have professional indemnity insurance in place to fight cases such as this.