Product Update
Is Cheesegeek Still in Business? (2026 Update)
Is Cheesegeek from Dragons’ Den still around in 2026? The deal it made, the dragons who invested, and where to buy Cheesegeek today.
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Cheesegeek pitched a cheese subscription business in series 19 and became notable as Steven Bartlett's very first Dragons' Den investment. The story since has real ups and downs: the company is still trading and selling cheese today, but it went through an administration process in 2025 that wiped out Bartlett's original stake.
The pitch and the deal
Founder Edward Hancock pitched Cheesegeek, a cheese subscription business built around a mobile app, in series 19, episode 1. He asked for £150,000 in exchange for 7.5 percent of the business.
Steven Bartlett made the offer at those terms, £150,000 for 7.5 percent, his very first Dragons' Den deal after joining the panel. The business grew quickly in the years after, reportedly reaching around £1.5 million in turnover, and became one of the more visible names to come out of that series.
Growth, then trouble
Rapid growth is not the same as profitability, and Cheesegeek's expansion came with heavy investment in its technology stack and marketing that the business ultimately struggled to sustain. In early 2025, the company fell into administration.
The result was a pre-pack administration deal, a process where a struggling company's assets are sold, often to a new owner, immediately as it enters administration. Paisley-based Albex Group acquired Cheesegeek through that process in March 2025. Reporting at the time was clear that Steven Bartlett and the company's other backers, including crowdfunding investors, would not see a return on their original investment through this outcome.
What pre-pack administration actually means
It is worth being precise about what happened here, because pre-pack administration is often misunderstood. It is not the same as a company simply closing its doors. Instead, a struggling business's assets, brand, stock, customer relationships, are typically sold to a new buyer in a deal arranged before, or immediately as, administrators are appointed, allowing trading to continue with minimal disruption to customers and staff.
The trade-off is that existing shareholders and investors, including Steven Bartlett in this case, are generally left with nothing from that sale, since the process exists primarily to protect the ongoing business and its creditors rather than to preserve value for the people who originally funded it. It is a mechanism that can look, from the outside, like the company simply carried on as normal, when in fact the ownership and the original investment were wiped out entirely.
Where things stand now
Despite the ownership change, Cheesegeek itself did not disappear. The business continued day to day under the same team, still led by founder Edward Hancock, and the new owners have reportedly begun planning further investment in the brand.
So the practical answer for anyone wanting to buy Cheesegeek's products is straightforward: the company is still operating and still selling cheese, just under new corporate ownership following the 2025 administration. The original investor relationship with Bartlett, however, ended when the pre-pack deal went through.
A cautionary tale about growth spending
Cheesegeek's collapse followed a pattern seen across plenty of venture-backed and crowdfunded consumer brands, revenue growth financed by heavy spending on technology and marketing, without profitability catching up before the cash runs out. A subscription cheese business is a genuinely appealing niche, but the underlying unit economics of sourcing, packaging and shipping perishable products at scale are unforgiving if customer acquisition costs stay high.
Steven Bartlett's public profile meant this particular administration got more press coverage than most quiet company failures do, but the underlying mechanics were fairly ordinary: a company that grew faster than its cash could support, and a pre-pack sale that preserved the brand while erasing the original investors.
The verdict
Cheesegeek is still in business today, but it is not the same company, in an ownership sense, that Steven Bartlett backed in series 19. The brand survived a 2025 administration through a pre-pack sale to Albex Group, and continues to trade under its original founder and team, while Bartlett's original stake was wiped out in the process.
It is a useful case for anyone who assumes a company "still selling" today means the original Dragons' Den deal is still intact behind the scenes. Sometimes the product survives and the investor does not.
Where to buy Cheesegeek
Still selling as of 10 July 2026. Check today's price and availability.
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See the full Cheesegeek deal breakdown and term sheet →
