Five innovative street food entrepreneurs secure £10,000 investment through the McCain Streets Ahead Programme, powered by KERB

Five aspiring street food entrepreneurs have each secured the maximum £10,000 investment through the McCain Streets Ahead Programme, powered by KERB, an initiative designed to support people from disadvantaged backgrounds to overcome barriers to entering the hospitality industry.

The Panel Day was held at Mission Kitchen in London on Thursday, July 23, 2026.

It is unusual for every participant at a Panel Day to secure the maximum investment. This time, all five did.

It is not all about the money either. As one participant, Avalon, put it: “It’s changed my life. It’s given me a new sense of being.”

The five businesses backed this year show how broad, and how personal, the street food scene has become: a Philly cheese steak finished with Caribbean and African sauces, Azerbaijani qutab, an Ethiopian spiced grill box, Welsh lamb two ways and a vegetarian pav bhaji.

Each participant had two hours to prepare their hero dish, having previously submitted a business pitch covering their concept and commercial plans to a panel of hospitality experts. They then served and presented their food before the panellists took time to discuss and deliberate each concept.

What is the McCain Streets Ahead Programme, powered by KERB?

Streets Ahead exists to break down barriers to entering hospitality, supporting aspiring food entrepreneurs from disadvantaged backgrounds with the skills, knowledge, investment and practical experience needed to turn promising food concepts into sustainable, thriving businesses.

Jordana Bowman, product marketing director at McCain Foods, has been involved since the first cohort. She said: “We just wanted as a business to do something that felt like it was supporting the hospitality industry in a slightly different way.

“Street food is really where all of the trends and the newness comes through, it filters from the ground up.”

What McCain kept noticing, she said, was a similarity in who was making it through.

“There are a lot of people who’ve been travelling and had a great experience and brought that food back, and that’s great,” she said.

“But there’s such a huge diverse culture in this country, and we wanted to support more people from less advantaged backgrounds to bring their ideas and their heritage and create their own business out of that.”

Naomi Tinkler, category growth director at McCain Foods, added: “The programme is quite tough early on. To get to this point, the participants need to be quite self-motivated.”

Five founders, five hero dishes

Avalon and his business partner Harrison, friends for more than 35 years, brought Gambino Cheese Steaks. Their cheese steak is marinated for more than 24 hours and finished with two sauces drawn from their own backgrounds, one African-inspired and hot, one Caribbean-inspired and mild.

Avalon said: “There are other cheese steaks, but I’m not sure if they’re doing it with the Caribbean, African-inspired ingredients and flavours. The meat has a base flavour, so if you don’t want any sauce, you’re still going to get flavour.”

Avalon came to the programme by an unusual route. He learned to cook properly in prison, feeding other inmates and taking their feedback seriously.

He said: “Over the past few years I’ve been at His Majesty’s pleasure, and I used to cook for a lot of people inside the prison. People would give me feedback and say, you need to cook this or you need to cook that. I came out 14 months ago. I was working with a charity called StandOut, and I figured I needed something to do.

“I’m a plasterer by trade, and as much as I loved that, I thought I need to change the things that I do. They pointed me in the direction of the Streets Ahead programme.

“It’s changed my life. It’s not just cooking food, there’s logistics, costings. But seeing my loved ones proud of me, seeing my mum, all my children, it’s given me a new sense of being.”

Roman cooked qutab for Kutab Street, a dish he traced back to childhood. He said: “I’m from Crimea and we had Crimean Tatar similar food, but it’s a little bit different because we fry.

“I prefer healthier food and fresher, so it’s my choice to cook this Azerbaijani food, because it doesn’t need oil for a deep fryer.”

Eyob served a grill box for Addis Eats, layered with Ethiopian spicing he has dialled back for a British market.

He said: “My secret ingredient is the spice, everything mixed with the meats. It came from back home, the way my mum used to cook. It’s going to be a bit hard and spicy, it’s not going to reach a variety of people. So I just add a little bit.”

Rhiannon presented Welsh lamb for On the Pull, a name that plays on pulled meat: rosemary lamb with mint gravy and roast potatoes, or the same lamb in a bread roll with a fresh salad.

She said: “I’m Welsh, so I thought, bring a bit of Welsh love into it. I always love searing it off on the grill first. It gives it that depth of flavour.”

Alzena cooked pav bhaji and onion salad for Alu Bhaji, a dish that arrived by way of a memory.

She said: “We would go to Wembley occasionally and do a big Indian food shop, and pav bhaji used to be served on the stall. I just had such a nice memory of that. Pav bhaji is the number one Indian street food, so it just can’t miss.”

What the judges were tasting for

Sam Mason, food development manager at KERB, had read every pitch deck beforehand.

He said: “The proof is in the pudding, right? Seeing how it manifests itself on the plate is what we’re here to do.

“We want to see some skill in layering flavours, that it’s not just one note, that they’re bringing some expertise from their backgrounds or things they’re really passionate about.”

Jordana framed it as a test of whether the cooking matched the pitch.

She said: “Does the food deliver on the promise of the pitch? A lot of it comes down to how good is that food, and can they really deliver it at scale at a market?”

For Naomi, the tasting stayed with her.

“Lots of the participants talked about the emotional connection with food, and food is love, and cooking for people is showing caring,” she said.

“What’s really lovely is tasting their passion and their pride and their heritage in the food they serve. You have to put a little bit of soul in it, and it definitely was in what we tasted.”

The trends shaping street food

Two threads ran through the panel’s thinking. The first was regional British cooking.

Sam said: “Recently we’re seeing people specialising in Scottish food, Welsh food, which is really great to see, because currently in KERB’s offer we’re lacking in that. That is drilling down into the need of people who are in need of comfort and recognisability, but also supporting their local environments.”

The second was provenance, which now sits inside the pitch deck rather than bolted on later.

Jordana said: “We definitely see a trend towards provenance being really important for people when they’re making their choices. Rhiannon’s concept is all about Welsh lamb.

“Where are you sourcing your lamb from? What other Welsh flavours are you bringing in? That’s the sort of stuff we want to ask.”

“These guys are creating the trends”

The panel was careful not to overstate its influence.

Guidance is offered, Jordana said, but the founders themselves are driving the innovation.

“Things that are trending and on a growth trajectory, that’s where the money is,” she explained.

“There is also an element where this is street food, so these guys are creating the trends. We hope to help and guide, but we also want to learn from them, because I’d never tried Azerbaijani food before today.

“That could be the next big global flavour trend in five, 10 years.”

What happens next

The investment will help the founders continue developing their businesses and take their next steps as food entrepreneurs.

Avalon plans to be set up by September.

Asked what he would spend the £10,000 on, he said: “Equipment, certificates, health and safety, all our licences, ensuring that we are a fully legit operation.

“It’s changed my life. It’s not just cooking food, there’s logistics, costings. But seeing my loved ones proud of me, seeing my mum, all my children, it’s given me a new sense of being.”

For Alzena, who turned 50 in April after 14 years as a spa therapist, the programme has already given her the confidence to take her next steps.

She said: “If I wanted to have a stall in a market, I could very easily do that now, but before it was just a memory.”

Naomi was careful not to treat the investment as an ending, saying: “It’s really the start of the hard work. It’s fine in a classroom, but the next stage is to go and make it real and build their own business.”

Jordana, four panels in, admitted the day still gets to her.

She said: “Every year we get more amazing cuisines from parts of the world we’ve never tried food from before.

“It’s always so heartwarming to hear these stories. It does get emotional, there’s often a few tears.”