Levi Roots: Caribbean Food, Enterprise and the Story Behind Reggae Reggae Sauce

Levi Roots entered Dragons’ Den with a guitar and a food business. He sang to introduce Reggae Reggae Sauce before explaining the venture to the investors. In 2007, Peter Jones and Richard Farleigh invested £50,000 between them. Soon afterwards, Reggae Reggae Sauce reached Sainsbury’s shelves. The television appearance became the defining public moment of Roots’ career, but understanding it requires looking at the years of performance, cooking and local enterprise that preceded it. ^{6, 7}

A childhood between Jamaica and Britain

Born in Jamaica, Roots spent his early childhood in Clarendon before joining his parents in Britain. His grandmother was an important presence in those early years. In his own account, she introduced him to cooking, while church brought him into contact with singing. Food and music belonged to everyday family life before either became a profession. His parents had moved to Brixton, and the family’s migration happened in stages as money became available for the children to travel. Those separations, followed by reunion in an unfamiliar country, form the beginning of his story. ¹

Remembering his arrival in a 2024 interview, Roots described the cold and bare trees of Britain, and the racism he encountered at school. His parents’ parties offered a different experience: people gathering in their Brixton home, with Black and white guests sharing the occasion. These recollections place difficulty and sociability alongside one another. The Britain he entered could be hostile, while the home his family made within it could also be a place of welcome. ²

The BBC’s account accompanying his 2016 Desert Island Discs appearance describes a child who had to catch up with reading and writing after starting school in Britain. As a teenager he became a Rastafarian. After leaving school he trained as an apprentice engineer, then chose to pursue music. The same account describes a period in prison in his late twenties, an experience he regarded as a turning point. These were substantial changes of direction long before anyone offered him investment on television. ³

Music and work at Notting Hill Carnival

Roots’ musical apprenticeship included working with Sir Coxsone Outernational, one of the sound systems around which his young life in London revolved. Speaking in 2023, he recalled becoming an MC during the 1970s and described his early record Poor Man’s Story as a response to life around Brixton’s frontline. Music gave him a way to address his surroundings as well as entertain a crowd. The performer who later sang to investors had already spent years learning how to hold people’s attention. ⁴

His recording work included Free Your Mind, the album associated with his 1998 MOBO nomination. Recognition within music preceded the sauce business by almost a decade. That earlier career helps explain why singing could feel like a natural way for him to introduce himself to an unfamiliar audience. ¹⁴

Carnival brought another kind of education. In an interview about Notting Hill Carnival, Roots remembered helping at his aunt’s stall as a teenager, scaling fish while she prepared food. He recalled a menu that included jerk chicken, rice and peas, rotis and curry goat, alongside roast and steamed fish. He enjoyed the response from people eating what the stall supplied. Serving a festival crowd also placed cooking inside a demanding public setting: food had to be prepared, customers had to be served, and a stall had to make its presence felt amid the surrounding activity. ⁵

He later combined those experiences in the Rasta’raunt, his Carnival food-and-music venture. He dated its beginning to 1991 and recalled involving his children, bringing a guitar and singing around the stall. Here, the association between reggae and food was already practical. It helped shape an encounter with customers. A name, a voice and a meal could belong to the same experience, years before that combination reached a television studio. ⁵

What went into the 2007 breakthrough

The commercial preparations were more gradual than the familiar television story suggests. The chronology recorded in the later court proceedings places Roots’ work towards a Reggae Reggae Sauce launch in 2006. He approached Sainsbury’s for financial support that June and subsequently applied to Dragons’ Den. A company was incorporated in January 2007; the programme was broadcast on 7 February. Later that month, a recipe was supplied to the food company G Costa, and a manufacturing and distribution licence followed in August. These details show the practical arrangements behind turning a food idea into a product that other companies could make and sell. ⁶

Jones’ own account credits an agreement with Sainsbury’s with getting the bottled sauce on sale within six weeks of the broadcast. The investment brought commercial relationships as well as money. Roots’ performance introduced the product to viewers; buyers, manufacturing arrangements and distribution made it possible for those viewers to purchase it. His success therefore involved both the distinctive identity he brought to the pitch and the help required to operate at a larger scale. ⁷

The story on the bottle

Success also brought scrutiny of the story used to promote the sauce. In litigation over the sauce, Roots accepted that the claim that its recipe had been handed down by his grandmother was untrue. The judge criticised that representation. At the same time, the court dismissed the claims brought against Roots over the recipe and an alleged business agreement. His grandmother’s influence on his childhood cooking and the provenance of the commercial sauce are different questions. ⁸

The case had been brought by Tony Bailey and Sylvester Williams. The barristers who represented Roots confirm that the High Court dismissed the claim and awarded costs in his favour. The subsequent appeal was also dismissed in November 2012, leaving the claimants unsuccessful in their challenge to the business. ⁹

Caribbean cooking beyond the bottle

Roots’ wider food career developed quickly. In June 2008, the Jamaican High Commission in London hosted the launch of his Reggae Reggae Cookbook. The Jamaica Information Service reported that it combined Jamaican dishes and his own creations with autobiographical material about childhood, migration and the difficulties of growing up. Jones introduced him at the launch. The setting brought together the commercial success of a British-based food business and recognition from Jamaica’s representatives in Britain. For Roots, publishing also created room to introduce a range of dishes and to place the cook’s own experience alongside the instructions. The report also noted that he had recorded an extended version of his sauce song to raise money for Comic Relief, taking the musical idea from his pitch into another public setting. ¹⁰

Caribbean Food Made Easy followed in 2009 as a BBC television series and an accompanying cookbook. The project connected journeys in Britain and the Caribbean with recipes intended for home cooks. Its publisher emphasised readily available ingredients and included 100 recipes in the book. That approach addressed a practical question for viewers: how could a dish they had enjoyed, or a cuisine they wanted to explore, become part of their own cooking? Demonstration and explanation gave Roots a different relationship with his audience from the brief encounter of an investment pitch. ¹¹

His brown stew chicken recipe, published by ITV’s This Morning, shows how that teaching worked. Seasoned chicken is browned before simmering with onions, peppers, chilli and other aromatics. Rice and peas made with kidney beans and coconut completes the meal. The recipe explains alternatives for some ingredients and sets out the stages of preparation. Readers could use it to make a complete Caribbean meal at home, extending their knowledge of his cooking beyond the bottled sauce. ¹²

Passing on business experience

His writing also moved into enterprise. You Can Get It If You Really Want, published in 2011, brought together business advice, personal experiences and contributions from other entrepreneurs, including Jones. It addressed people starting businesses and made room for mistakes as part of the account. The move into this kind of publishing extended the questions raised by Dragons’ Den: how does someone explain an idea, find support and learn to run the business it becomes? Roots could bring experience of both the public pitch and the less visible work around it. ¹³

In 2013 he launched his School of Life Tour, combining encouragement for children with demonstrations of food they could make. Cooking supplied a practical activity alongside the account of his business career, giving young audiences something to try for themselves. ¹

The educational work has included a long relationship with the Royal Agricultural University. In January 2026, the university described an association stretching back more than 15 years and his regular participation as a judge in its Grand Idea enterprise competition. It had made him an Honorary Fellow in 2019. Work with student entrepreneurs puts business advice into a setting where ideas can be questioned and developed. For a university concerned with food and agriculture, Roots’ experience also connects production with the challenge of persuading people to buy and use a product. ¹⁵

The University of Westminster awarded him an honorary doctorate in July 2024, acknowledging his work as an entrepreneur, musician and author. Its account also describes his contributions to students through talks and discussions. At the ceremony, Roots spoke about the distance between his limited access to education as a child and his later engagement with universities. The significance of such encounters lies partly in that exchange: experience acquired through work and setbacks can be brought into conversation with people who are learning in a formal setting. ¹⁶

Bringing sound systems to the stage

Music remained a source of new work. Roots conceived Sound Clash: Death in the Arena, which went to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2023. Set in a dystopian city, it follows lovers connected to rival sound systems, with musical competition entangled in political control. Alex Wheatle developed the story and script; the team also included producer Adrian Grant, director Ray Shell and choreographer Jade Hackett. In describing the production, Roots explained how the imagined setting gave the collaborators creative freedom. The project returned to sound-system culture through theatre, drawing on his experience without presenting the fictional lovers as autobiography. ⁴

A continuing connection to Brixton

In November 2024, Brixton House announced Roots as its Chair Designate, with a planned transition the following spring. Its announcement brought his business experience into the context of a theatre supporting artists and its surrounding community. Roots spoke about the importance of a space in which creative people could develop and perform. For someone whose own public life had grown through music, Carnival and Brixton, the appointment brought cultural interests into the responsibilities of leading an institution. ¹⁴

Roots went on to become Chair of Brixton House. ¹⁷ His involvement has also extended to the food served at the theatre. For the House Bar & Kitchen, he curated a menu delivered by Karma Sherpa, owner of The Joint. The partnership brought together two people working in Brixton, with dishes including dumplings and Reggae Reggae-inspired chicken wings. Food could become part of a visit to a performance, or a reason to spend time in the building. His business and cultural work meet here in the everyday activity of a theatre he helps to lead. ¹⁸

Sources

1. Levi Roots — About Levi Roots.

2. The Times — Levi Roots: When I first came to Britain I thought it was cold and dead.

3. BBC Desert Island Discs — Levi Roots, 17 July 2016 (BBC episode description on Apple Podcasts).

4. WhatsOnStage — Edinburgh Fringe Q&A: Levi Roots on Sound Clash: Death in the Arena.

5. The Independent — Levi Roots on Notting Hill Carnival and the food that brings people together.

6. Court of Appeal — Bailey and another v Graham and others [2012] EWCA Civ 1469, introduction reproduced by vLex.

7. Peter Jones — Levi Roots investment portfolio.

8. Evening Standard — Levi Roots sauce recipe story was 'fraudulent', says High Court judge.

9. 11 South Square — Bailey v Graham: High Court defence and dismissed appeal.

10. Jamaica Information Service — Levi Roots Launches Reggae Reggae Cook Book, 7 June 2008.

11. Hachette — Caribbean Food Made Easy, 2009.

12. ITV This Morning — Levi Roots' brown stew chicken.

13. Hachette — You Can Get It If You Really Want, 2011.

14. Brixton House — Levi Roots Announced as New Chair Designate, 29 November 2024.

15. Royal Agricultural University — Levi Roots to give public talk, 26 January 2026.

16. University of Westminster — University awards honorary doctorate to Levi Roots, 24 July 2024.

17. Brixton House — Board members.

18. Brixton House — The House Bar & Kitchen and its food partnership.

Image credit

Levi Roots, photographed on 14 September 2010. Photograph: John Ferguson. CC BY 2.0. Unmodified. Image source; CC BY 2.0.