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Award-winning Dundee street food entrepreneurs deliver campus lecture and tour food innovation labs
The founders of the award-winning Cheesy Toast Shack served up a marketing and entrepreneurship masterclass for students at Abertay University’s Dundee Business School.
Business founders Kate Carter Larg and Sam Larg visited campus to deliver a special guest lecture to students on Abertay’s business and marketing degree programmes, charting their own success in building one of Tayside and Fife’s best-known food and drink street food brands and offering practical insights into branding, digital marketing and how to grow a business from the ground up.
The session formed part of learning across three marketing focused modules covering digital marketing, branding and customer relationship management, with students hearing first hand how The Cheesy Toast Shack has built a strong and recognisable brand through social media, storytelling and direct engagement with customers.
Founded in Fife, The Cheesy Toast Shack has grown from a local start up operating in Kingsbarns and St Andrews into one of Scotland’s best known street food businesses, winning Street Vendors of the Year, reaching the Scottish Street Food Awards finals, and being named Best Place to Eat at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The business now has an additional outlet at Loom Deli in Dundee’s Old Mill complex.
During the lecture, Kate and Sam spoke candidly about their experience of building a business in a competitive industry, discussing both challenges and successes, and outlining how marketing decisions have shaped the growth of the brand. The session concluded with a Q&A, giving students the opportunity to explore practical questions around content creation, brand protection and entrepreneurship.
Kate said:
It’s such an honour and a pleasure to have been invited here to Abertay to host the guest lecture. Hospitality has suffered over the years, with people turning their noses up at it as an industry; and it’s such a delight to know that it would be the focus of a business lecture. It’s certainly a challenging industry to be in, but we love to be able to share success stories amongst these challenges. We’ve worked hard and feel incredibly proud of not just The Cheesy Toast Shack, but also the other businesses we own which we have been able to create off the back of this. We’d love to see more young people getting into this industry and starting new and exciting ventures.
Following the lecture, Kate and Sam toured Abertay’s food science and consumer testing facilities and got a chance to visit the Dundee Business School graduate showcase of final year student work.
Dr Emilee Simmons, Head of Dundee Business School at Abertay University, said:
It’s incredibly important for our students to hear from successful local entrepreneurs who can speak honestly about building and sustaining a business. Kate and Sam’s experience shows how creativity, confidence and strong marketing can open doors, and provides an inspiring, real-world perspective for our students to become the next generation of business leaders.
Abertay University regularly welcomes entrepreneurs and industry professionals into its teaching to ensure students gain industry insight, practical skills and exposure to diverse career pathways. For more information on studying with Dundee Business School visit our website.
