How rocket helped win an entrepreneur award.

East Yorkshire firm Living Salads scooped the award for 'Best Start Up Business' at Yorkshire Business Insider magazine's 42 under 42 event, held in Leeds.

The company beat off stiff competition from entrepreneurs across the region to win at the ceremony, which celebrates up and coming young entrepreneurs.

The list, published in next month's Yorkshire Business Insider magazine, represents the best of the region's young business talent, and for a man who started his business in his garden shed after being made redundant, Andrew Johnson from winning firm Living Salads has not done badly.

He said: "I am really chuffed to have won this award. Starting out in the back garden shed I never dreamt that the business would take off as it has. I always maintain that as long as your product focus is on quality, success will follow. My idea came to me after I was made redundant from a multinational company in Portugal.

"The redundancy pushed an idea I had at the back of my mind to the front. We had been eating wild rocket straight out of the fields while we lived abroad, and the difference in taste was significant. It was not until we returned to England that I truly realised the opportunity that freshly picked leaves offered.

"The idea was that the salad would be growing in its tray right until the moment the customer cut it and put it on to their plate. It gave people field fresh leaves in their home, so I knew we were on to something. The only drawback was that my wife and I had to keep the idea secret for months while we tested the best way to grow the salads in the garden shed."

Living Salads are now listed nationwide in most major supermarkets and the business is branching out to supplying the catering and restaurant trades.

Contact Living Salads on tel [phone] or visit www.livingsalads.co.uk