Levi Roots

About

Levi Roots is a reggae star, celebrity chef and businessman.

Levi grew up in Jamaica where his grandmother taught him Caribbean cuisine. Then later, he moved to England, but yearned for the music and sunshine of Jamaica.

Personality/Celebrity

To combat homesickness, Levi would spend hours in the kitchen refining his grandmother’s recipe for jerk sauce. It was a mission that led to the entrepreneurs from Dragons’ Den investing in his plans to market the sauce commercially.

Levi Roots’ Reggae Reggae Sauce is a jerk barbecue sauce. He later took the sauce to a food trade show where a BBC producer approached him to appear on Dragons’ Den. He then appeared in the first episode of the fourth series, seeking £50,000 of investment from the Dragons in return for a 20% stake in Reggae Reggae Sauce.

Peter Jones and Richard Farleigh offered the £50,000 for a 40% stake in his business. Shortly after Levi’s appearance on the programme, Sainsbury’s announced that they would be stocking the sauce in 600 of their stores.

He published the Levi Roots’ Reggae Reggae Cookbook in 2008, with a foreword by Peter Jones.

Roots had a television cooking show, Caribbean Food Made Easy, on BBC2, with a book of the same name. The show followed Roots as he demonstrated easy ways to cook Caribbean food at home.

Roots has performed with James Brown and Maxi Priest and was nominated for a Best Reggae Act MOBO award. He was a friend of Bob Marley, and performed “Happy Birthday Mr. President” for Nelson Mandela in 1992.

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