A Stylist Celebration!

We're very proud to be featured not once but twice in this week's edition of the fantastic Stylist magazine.

Firstly Not Dogs is featured in the article '23 Courses to Make You Rich' in the magazine's 'In the Money' section where they focus on the next big industries and the skills to learn to help you launch a new business. Looks like we're onto a winner with Not Dogs as Stylist's research with Mintel show that 'the rising demand for healthy fast-food will spur the growth of gourmet food trucks' although we wouldn't call us 'gourmet' by any means - our food is just something we, and thankfully many other people, enjoy!

Secondly, I get to gush about my amazing co-founder Katie as she's made it through to the final 25 of the 'top ambitious, strong and adventurous women' in Stylist and Nivea's #bringiton30 competition. As it states these inspirational 25 women are forging their own paths in life and business from creating charities to travelling the world they are all very worthy candidates but, being biased, I'm voting for Katie of course and would love you to do the same!

Katie's piece talks about how Not Dogs was created, the passion we have for our business and how we want to disrupt the world of vegetarian food in a positive way. But, as an extra encouragement for you to vote, Katie is not only a fantastic business women but a supportive, funny and amazing individual too and I'm very happy to be able to call her my friend and co-founder!

Vote for Katie here: http://www.stylist.co.uk/home/microsite2/nivea

And you can pick up a free copy of Stylist magazine featuring us this week.

Thanks!

Jane x

As The Not Dogs Summer Tour ends... A Look to the Future!

As our Not Dogs Summer tour comes to an end, we thought we'd put together a round up of our journey so far! To give you an idea of just how much of a whirlwind adventure we've had... by the turn of this year, 'veggie hot dog truck' was just an idea on a list of other crazy ideas, by March we had secured Quorn as a supplier and by June we were on the road embarking on a summer of fun taking Not Dogs to the masses at festivals all over the UK!

After visiting five festivals, we ended our summer of festival fun at Festival No 6 in the beautiful setting of Portmeirion in Wales. The people, place and music made it one of our best festivals so far - again with so much amazing and exciting feedback from festival-goers, both veggie and meat-eaters! We spent nearly every moment we were there in our little purple home, so we didn't see any of the acts - but we were very close to the main stage so we could hear them and had a great view when we could look up from the sausages!

Thank you to all our new found fans who queued and waiting patiently for a Not Dog - and we are sorry we sold out on Sunday, we couldn't believe it either! Sunday was also my birthday - and thinking back to what I was doing a year ago, it was very strange to think I was spending this birthday running my own business & serving up veggie hot dogs with Jane, it was definitely a birthday I will never forget!

From Festival No 6 we headed straight to Stokesley in Middlesborough where we had been invited by Quorn to park up our truck and serve all the staff Not Dogs for lunch. We had a great day presenting to the sales and marketing team about our summer and going behind the scenes to see some top-secret products being made! We are looking forward to going back very soon!

As we left Wales to embark up North, we received the news that we'd made it to the final two in the Virgin Food Fest competition - a search to find the most exciting food entrepreneurs. In less than a week we were filming a 45 second elevator pitch in Virgin HQ's Battleship Building and creating an event stand for the finale that would mimic our food truck! The final took place earlier this week where we met Paul Lindley, founder of Ella's Kitchen, Hemsley & Hemsley, Sir Richard Branson and the judge of our category 'Tastiest Start up', Acting Editor of Guardian Food magazine; Mina Holland. 

We met so many amazing people and lots of new fans of Not Dogs, and even took a great #sausageselfie with Paul Lindley! The event was great fun, and the Q&A with the judges on stage was inspiring and insightful. We were busy writing down every word Sir Richard Branson said about making a fool of yourself to get your brand noticed when he directed a question straight at us asking us how we had made fools of ourselves so far! Of course after the summer we've had it wasn't hard to reply!

Unfortunately we lost out to a great finalist Killer Tomato - a Mexican street food chef in London chosen as the winner by Mina Holland. Despite not being crowned the winners, we honestly had the best day out meeting some very inspirational people, and most importantly people who were routing for us throughout the day and after the event. The support from so many people who had us as their winner was absolutely overwhelming - thank you to everyone we met!

So where to next? It looks like this journey isn't going to end anytime soon! We are now embarking on an Autumn tour kicking off with University Freshers Weeks. Tomorrow we will be at Leeds University for the day, followed by Bournemouth and ending in London over the next couple of weeks - we're so excited to take Not Dogs to students and see what they think!

And so ends our first Summer tour, we've got a huge thank you list to get working on, it's been the toughest work we've ever done, but we've had so much fun, met so many characters - and we're so excited to have created a brand and product that so many others love just as much as us. Here's to the future!

You can keep up to date with where Not Dogs will be next over on our website, Twitter & Instagram channels.

Katie x

Exciting News... Not Dogs Announced as Finalists in the #VirginFoodFest

We're very proud to share the news that our vegetarian food brand Not Dogs has been chosen as one of two finalists in the 'Tastiest Startup' category at the Virgin Foodpreneur Fest! We found out while travelling with our little purple truck to Quorn HQ in Middlesborough this week and had to pull over we were so excited!

On Wednesday we'll be heading to the live finale in Battersea in London where we'll hear the judges; Sir Richard Branson, acting Editor of the Guardian Cook magazine Mina Holland, founder of Ella's Kitchen Paul Lindley and bloggers Jasmine and Melissa Hemsley, announce the winning brand!

This is what Virgin Startup said about Not Dogs:

Created when founders Katie and Jane found themselves frustrated at the lack of satisfying veggie fast food options at festivals, Not Dogs proves that you don’t need meat to create a hot dog that ticks all the boxes – and with imaginative toppings that include fried eggs, beer-caramelised onions and crushed nachos, they’re way ahead of their traditional counterparts.

On Wednesday there will be a 'people's choice' competition where competitors are encouraged to create a buzz around a particular hashtag given out on the day (along with #VirginFoodFest) so it would be amazing if you could show your support and look out for our tweets, retweeting and tweeting where you can, on @notdogsUK.

We're so pleased that in just nine months Not Dogs has gone from a little idea on our 'Mental List' to us spending the summer travelling up and down the UK  in our lively truck and now being finalists in a Virgin competition. Thanks to everyone who has supported us on our journey so far... we can't wait for 2015!

Kickin' Katie & Plain Jane x 

The Best Things in Life in September

The summer months are now over so it's time to look forward to a new fashion season, getting cosy with open-fires or searching for some Winter sun in a faraway country! Think we'll do all three! Here are our #bestthingsinlife for September...

Katie

Best things in life?

The month of September! One of my favourite months as it’s my birthday! But also because it signifies a fresh start and instead of miserable memories of going back to school it reminds me of new uniform, the latest cool lunch box to pack my sandwiches into and of course new school shoes! I’m looking forward to motivating myself to end the year on a high, and will of course be adding all of the things I have to look forward into my Countdown Keeper app – who needs Summer hey?

We both love Nivea products and Stylist magazine, so when we found out we’d made it into their #BRINGITON 30 shortlist, a competition designed to find 30 (under 30) go-getters and dream-makers with big stories to share, we were absolutely stunned! The judges are Jenny Garrett (LinkedIn Top 10 Power Women 2013), Gemma Crisp (Stylist’s Assistant Editor) and the Nivea Team – our fate is now in their hands!

Long coastal walks – I enjoyed a long weekend in Saint Agnes in Cornwall to get September off to a good start by walking along the rocky coast from Saint Agnes to Peranporth, stopping for a birthday toast and some delicious Cornish ice-cream! We also took in the sights of St Ives too which was beautiful!

The musician that inspires me is…

Stevie Wonder! There are so many artists and bands that I love and listen to everyday, but this time 2 years ago I was watching Stevie Wonder headline Bestival on my Birthday while all my friends serenaded me with ‘Happy Birthday’. It sounds naïve but I had forgotten just how many amazing hits he has and it was a true inspiration to watch him delight thousands of people, especially while he sang ‘Isn't She Lovely’ with his daughter on stage.

The pin that sums me up at the moment…

Jane

Best things in life?

My birthday weekend in Cornwall. I was surprised by my best friends with a weekend away to Cornwall and what a weekend it was! We ate amazing food at Jamie Oliver's Fifteen and Lewinnick Lodge, surfed at Fistral Beach and then spent the whole afternoon drinking champagne and eating pizza at the beach bar. It was lovely to spend time with my favourite people and just enjoy each other's company, drunken dancing included!

Getting through a summer of festivals! Not Dogs has made the summer of 2014 a very memorable, fun and exciting one although it's been the hardest work of my life! All the good times outweigh the tough times and we may be mad but we will be back at even more festivals around Europe next summer which I'm very excited about!

Books! My birthday list this year was very conservative although it did have tonnes of books on it from cookbooks to business books - a very varied bunch. I jumped straight into The Fault in Our Stars by John Green which I haven't been able to put down since my birthday - fantastic book so far!

The musician who inspires me is...

Beyonce... of course! I've loved Beyonce since she was in Destiny's Child although it's been since she released her latest visual album 'Beyonce' that I've really felt inspired by her. I find her strength outstanding; she's a mum, wife and businesswoman and one of the only entertainers who doesn't seem to have a problem singing and dancing (amazingly) on stage!

The pin that sums me up at the moment…