A family from Meaford is set to appear on Dragon’s Den at the end of the month.
Gingerbug Co-Founders Megan and Bren Silk will be showcasing their drink brewed in Owen Sound on the hit CBC television show on Nov. 30.
Megan Silk says they filmed the episode in May after they first launched the drink Gingerbug in 2022, which is sold at retail stores across the country.
She says Gingerbug is a wild-fermented ginger beer, which was originally a healthy farm drink they made for their children as an alternative to kombucha and soft drinks.
“We did a little bit of research and we realized that unlike kombucha, it was one of the original tonics that has not been brought into the modern day market place in a significant scale so we decided to do that,” says Silk.
She says they pitched the drink in December, 2022, and in February they got the notification they were being invited to the studio to pitch to the producers.
“We pitched to the producers and then, yet again waited for two months of course thinking we weren’t going to get chosen and then we got the call that we were invited to pitch in the den,” says Silk. “We were so excited, we have seen almost every single episode of the show since it aired.”
She adds this is not the first time she and her husband faced a hoard of dragons, however, as they have also taken on the Meaford Dragons, an annual event with a similar format to the popular show.
“We just love the concept, we are big champions of thinking big and entrepreneurship so this is our jam,” says Silk.
While on the show, she says they received mixed reactions but wanted to communicate to the dragons that while there are holes in their business, they wanted to see if any of them were excited in their product and wanted to join them.
“There was definitely a lot of positive feedback and of course there were questions. We are creating a whole new beverage category here with our fermented ginger beer, so there was some explaining to do and of course the dragons will always have an opinion about everything,” says Silk.
The episode will air on Nov. 30 at 8 p.m.