A total cash injection of £184,000 has helped a Cornwall publishing company to expand its workforce, launch new ranges and sell its titles around the world.
When children’s non-fiction publisher Hungry Tomato received its first loan of £84,000 from the South West Investment Fund via SWIG Finance in 2023, it had four employees and a turnover of £350,000.
Today, it has 12 staff and a projected 2026 year-end turnover of £2m.
A further South West Investment Fund loan of £100,000 was approved this year and invested in creating more books and growing the business, with more than 100 titles planned for release next year.
Managing Director Sharon Twiggs said: “The South West Investment Fund was a lifeline for us. Banks are less likely to value intellectual property as security, but it’s worth more than anything else in our business. Without the funding, we would still have been skimming along, doing a third of the business we are now.”
The South West Investment Fund was launched by the British Business Bank – the Government’s economic development bank – in 2023 and Hungry Tomato was one of its first beneficiaries. The fund covers the entire South West region, providing loans from £25k to £2m and equity investment up to £5m to help small and medium-sized businesses to start up, scale up or stay ahead.
The smaller loans part of the South West Investment Fund is managed by SWIG Finance, a South West-based company which provides loans and support to help smaller businesses in the region.
Hungry Tomato Managing Director, Sharon Twiggs
Sharon and husband John were both veterans of the publishing industry when they launched Hungry Tomato in 2015. Four years later, they relocated from Kent to Cornwall and are now based at the Old Bakery Studios in Truro, where a team of young authors and graphic designers beaver away on an array of educational titles.
“We love reading The Sunday Times,” said Sharon, “but we couldn’t help noticing that in the book reviews, there would be four pages of non-fiction for adults while the children’s section ignored it completely.
“And yet, when you look at trends, boys especially tend to prefer non-fiction. We were really keen to get books out there that would encourage kids to read more.”
The Hungry Tomato ranges are designed to be brightly coloured and appealing to readers, and carefully written to ensure quality and quantity of text appropriate to each age group. Having initially focused on books for schools and educators, last year saw a new range drop: Big Questions Answered, devised to enthuse seven to nine-year-olds about science.
Forty titles give a broad-brush introduction to specific branches of science, some familiar (AI, meteorology, seismology), others less so (selenology – relating to the moon; teuthology – the study of cephalopods including octopus and squid). Each offers a narrative explanation, plus glossary and downloadable assets.
“We’d been asked for this for a long time,” said Sharon. “For years, the standard syllabus has covered magnets, photosynthesis, the seasons – it’s pretty dull. We looked at university courses and found 140 individual sciences, and built the range around them.”
Off the back of this came Tomorrow’s World for ages 9+ in collaboration with a leading Chinese publisher. The first wave covers astrodynamics, augmented reality and planetary defence, with future editions planned for neuroscience and nanotechnology. Sharon describes them as “Horrible Science meets Adam Kay”.
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Next will come Hello for ages four to seven, starting with Hello Plant. “The South West Investment Fund has allowed us to do all of this, and we are still pushing the envelope,” said Sharon.
She also praised SWIG Finance for their support: “It can take a year for investment to yield a return, so SWIG Finance helped us to invest while making sure we had enough product to satisfy demand.”
Having established a longstanding relationship in North America, with a distribution arm in Minneapolis, Sharon and John are now nurturing links in the Far East, with business trips planned to Beijing, Shanghai and South Korea.
It’s a fruitful period that followed the nuclear winter of the Covid years. “Schools closed worldwide for the best part of two years – that really hurt us,” said Sharon. “We started picking up the pieces in 2022/23.”
The move to Cornwall was both for lifestyle but also talent. “There’s a fantastic pool of creative talent here, thanks to Falmouth University and Truro College. We have a great local team and they all want to be here – they start early, leave early and enjoy life, as do we.”
SWIG Finance business manager Rachel Thomson said: “I love reading and encouraging children to read is so important for their development. The books Hungry Tomato produce are wonderful, and I’m glad we were able to support them in their journey to make children’s books inspiring and accessible.”
David Tindall, Senior Investment Manager, from the British Business Bank, said: “This further investment for Hungry Tomato through the South West Investment Fund demonstrates how the fund can support businesses at every stage of their journey, from early growth to international expansion. What began as a small regional publishing house is now becoming a global player in children’s non-fiction, creating jobs and exporting creativity from the South West to the world.”
About SWIG Finance
SWIG Finance is a people-based lender that provides loans and support to help smaller businesses in the South and West Country grow. We base our lending decisions on potential rather than collateral, which means that we can often support businesses when others can't.
We’re growing every year. In 2024/25, we lent £14.8m to 501 businesses, helping to create and secure over 1,272 jobs and generate £75.7m in social impact. Download the report here.
If you’d like an informal chat about your funding requirements, get in touch with our friendly and professional team to see how we can help: info@swigfinance.co.uk / 01872 227 930