Calum Watson, who was previously executive head chef and director of operations for Marco-Pierre White’s business, and Greg Wixted, who has worked at Ogilvy, What If Innovations and marcoms agency Madison, set up the agency after becoming friends over the course of the last ten years.

The Food Nursery will offer clients recipe development, restaurant and food retail concepts, NPD testing, food service solutions, food idea generation and a six-week program to help develop new ideas ahead of market launch.

The firm has a panel of around 100 industry experts that includes TV chef and restaurateur Nancy Lam, Michelin-starred chef Graham Flannery, food nutritionist Fiona Hunter and Nick Munier, maitre d’ on TV’s Hell’s Kitchen. There is also a team of strategic marketing experts led by Wixted.

Wixted said: “NPD is key to not only keeping your current customers but winning new ones, but for some companies it can be a slow process. We’ve created a global network of recognisable, award winning and qualified chefs, food scientists, demonstrators, food writers, critics and consumer insight experts, so we know we have the very best people innovating on our client’s behalf.”