Dragon's Den health foods firm couple and bathroom company move into new units at Sunderland's Turbine Business Park

Rheal Superfoods Ltd has taken out a 12-year lease on a 29,418sq ft unit at the Turbine Business Park in Washington.

The company is run by Charlotte Bailey, 25, and Sean Ali, 29, of South Shields, who met at university and launched the health foods firm after they graduated in 2017, selling unique blends of superfoods to customers across the UK.

They were inspired by how healthy, organic and naturally gluten-free superfoods such as spirulina, baobab and açai berry were helping Charlotte to manage her coeliac disease, after being diagnosed at 16.

In April 2021 they appeared on Dragon’s Den and after receiving offers from all the Dragons, the pair negotiated a joint deal with Dragons Tej Lalvani and Peter Jones for a £50,000 investment in return for 6% equity – 3% distributed between each of the Dragons.

The new warehouse at Turbine Business Park will allow the business to grow as orders for their products increases.

Bathroom Cladding Centre Ltd has taken a 10-year lease of a 20,000sq ft unit.

Phil Mordey, managing director at Bathroom Cladding Centre Ltd, said: “We are absolutely delighted to have relocated to one of these new units, which will more than double our capacity for stock holding, allowing us to have great product availability.”

The Turbine Business Park scheme delivers 168,000sq ft of space on the 8.6acre site, located at the junction of the A19 and A1231 Sunderland Highway.

The industrial agency teams at HTA Real Estate and Avison Young were appointed by Copley Point Capital to market four-high specification warehouse units at the site.

Two units remain available to let extending to 51,000sq ft and 68,000sq ft respectively.

Nimit Oberoi, director, Copley Point Ltd, said: “We are pleased to see the strong tenant demand for these recently completed units.”

Simon Hill, Director at HTA said “We are delighted to have secured tenants for 50% of the recently completed units which is a true reflection of the high-quality of the industrial scheme and its prime location”

Danny Cramman, Director Avison Young said. “The scheme provides some much needed industrial/warehouse space to help address the current demand/supply imbalance in the North East.”