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Bigger. Bolder. More opportunity than ever. With 18 winners, a 50% increase year on year, the #SBS x Spring Fair competition is giving more small businesses the chance to break into wholesale. This February, the winning brands will exhibit across nine product categories at the NEC Birmingham, benefiting from a fully provisioned stand, expert mentoring and unrivalled access to the UK's leading retail buyers.
Awarded to past winners of Theo Paphitis's Small Business Sunday (#SBS), the Spring Fair partnership gives the most retail-ready alumni their first B2B trade show platform. This year's judges reviewed 54 shortlisted applications looking for proof of commercial traction, originality and a clear route to wholesale (which is a 10% increase since last year!).
Theo Paphitis, TV Dragon, Retail Entrepreneur and Small Business Champion said:
“The partnership between #SBS Small Business Sunday and the Spring & Autumn Fair team has now been running for eight years, and with this year’s competition we will have awarded over 100 free stands to small business owners. Year on year, the connections and relationships formed within the #SBS Village demonstrate just how valuable this opportunity is for growing businesses. It is a genuinely business-boosting experience, and I am already looking forward to meeting this year’s 18 finalists. Spring Fair continues to be a hub of opportunity, fresh thinking and new connections.”
Fay Tranter, Event Director at Spring Fair added:
“Every year we're inspired by the incredible talent coming through the #SBS community, but this year's entries raised the bar again - the quality was outstanding, making the judging process incredibly difficult. These 18 businesses represent exactly what independent retail is all about - creativity, resilience, originality and entrepreneurial spirit. One of the things I love most about Spring Fair is seeing businesses at the very beginning of their wholesale journey. Through the #SBS Village we'll be able to support these brands from day one, introducing them to thousands of retail buyers and giving them the platform, confidence and connections to accelerate their growth. We can't wait to welcome them to Spring Fair 2027 and see where this opportunity takes them.”
Who are the 2027 #SBS x Spring Fair winners?
Beauty and Wellbeing
There is a gap in the haircare market between products that claim to understand curly and wavy hair and a system that actually works for it. Curly Girl Method Club closes it with a science-backed six-step routine built around a community that has already done the hard work of building brand loyalty. A Holland & Barrett listing before a first trade show appearance is proof of that.
Food and Drink
Three generations of handmade chocolate-making sit behind every Saffire product, and it shows in the finish, the packaging and the gifting-ready presentation that gives independent retailers a story worth retelling at the till. Already stocked in Jarrolds, the brand has found its natural home in the destination gift and heritage retail channel.
Kitty Hargreaves invented a way to make mindfulness fit into the time it takes to brew a cup of tea. Each Cuppa Kindness teabag carries a scannable tag that opens a positive affirmation or a short audio meditation: the digital touchpoint is the teabag itself, which means the whole experience arrives inside the box.
Fashion
By Kala X makes Afro-chic clothing and home décor with the kind of visual confidence that does not need explaining on the shop floor. The dual-category approach is a genuine commercial advantage: the same brand story works on a fashion rail and on a gift table, which is rare, and gives buyers more flexibility in how they place it.
Gift
Rachel makes everything by hand in her Staffordshire studio, and the 160-plus clay keepsake designs she has built reflect years of understanding what people actually want to give. The bestselling Pocket Hug range at £4.50 RRP sits at an impulse gifting price point that moves without effort from any counter or checkout display. The brand is rebranding to Clay Sentiments in late 2026, with all the craft credentials intact.
Go Your Own Way
Bespoke 3D wooden maps laser-cut to capture a specific location in physical relief: it is a concept that explains itself the moment someone picks it up. Already stocked in Muncaster Castle and The Duchy of Cornwall Nursery, Go Your Own Way is fluent in the language of premium destination retail before its first wholesale trade show appearance.
Jasmine's illustrations began with rescue dogs Ghost and Barkley and expanded from there into greetings cards, sustainable clothing sourced from local charity shops, and community workshops that raise money for Durham dog rehoming charities. The North East Young Trader of the Year 2025 award came next. JLH Print is the kind of brand that builds its own community and then brings that community directly to its stockists.
Greetings
Lucy Kendall invested the £850 she earned through her GCSE exam results into her first greeting card range, illustrating the Dorset wildlife she had grown up drawing. Everything is locally produced and sustainably printed, and the founder story is the kind that independent gift buyers actively want to pass on to their customers.
Botanical and travel illustration with enough precision and warmth to work as standalone wall art as much as greeting cards. EllaJo already holds stockists in Istanbul concept stores, a credibility arc that travels well into any buyer conversation before a product is even unwrapped.
Botanical watercolours across cards, prints and tea towels: a range with enough visual coherence to anchor a full display, and enough product variety to build a genuine repeat order relationship. A Faire top shop ranking and a John Lewis pop-up are not incidental achievements for a brand heading to its first wholesale trade show.
Home
Handmade Welsh textile gifts, made in a workshop above a family gift shop in South Wales and supplied to around 150 independent stockists from that same space. Cushions, lavender bags and homeware with a genuine provenance story and the kind of repeat order consistency that comes from product people actually want to come back for.
Jewellery
Vicky turns discarded aluminium coffee pods into earrings, necklaces and brooches that are genuinely wearable and genuinely surprising. More than 10,000 pods diverted from landfill so far, with a Daily Telegraph feature and a Modern Maker Award nomination already secured before a first stand at a wholesale gift show.
SOZO Silver
Handcrafted silver jewellery with strong range coherence and a distinctive brand identity. The kind of considered, purposeful offering that sits well in independent boutiques and carries a clear story for the buyer to work with.
Kids, Toy and Play
Potion kits and sensory trays that are ready to open, ready to play with and designed to spark the kind of open-ended creative imagination children ask to return to. For a market of time-pressed parents who want meaningful play without the prep, Magic by Post removes the barrier entirely.
British-made children's clothing with original exclusive prints, designed and handmade in small batches in an Essex studio. A British Vogue feature and a clear development pathway into nursery décor give buyers a brand with editorial pull and an expanding range that justifies coming back each season.
Oeko-Tex and GOTS certified sustainable baby essentials with the kind of Scandinavian aesthetic restraint that ages well and photographs well. Susan hand-makes in her UK studio, sells through Faire and supplies independent boutiques from Cornwall to London. The certification does the sustainability conversation for the retailer so they do not have to.
Talking plushies designed to help children name and process difficult emotions: a concept that is first to market in its category and backed by a Ryman listing that confirms it holds in national retail as well as in direct and independent channels.
Unisex baby and kidswear in organic cotton with matching adult pieces. A coordinated family gifting proposition that photographs well, generates word-of-mouth and gives retailers a strong reason to reorder across seasons.
What themes came out of the 2027 judging?
Judges read 54 applications in full, and the same signals kept surfacing in the strongest entries.
Sustainability came up repeatedly, but not in the way it usually does. The brands that stood out were not making sustainability claims, they were showing it in practice: Oeko-Tex and GOTS certification, circular material systems built into the production model, and documented impact figures that could be pointed at rather than promised. Coffee Pod Creations has diverted over 10,000 aluminium pods from landfill and can prove it. Little Scandi Baby holds two independent material certifications. These are facts, not positioning.
The second pattern was community built before wholesale. Several winners had already developed an audience that followed the brand rather than simply bought from it, whether that was a curl care methodology with a dedicated following, a rescue dog charity partnership woven into the product range, or a founder whose personal story had become the primary reason people sought the brand out. Judges consistently noted that the entries with genuine community felt ready for trade in a way that product-only applications did not.
The third was the simplest: evidence. Named stockists, repeat order data, documented turnover, awards on the record. The 2027 cohort is unusual in how commercially active it already is. These are not businesses hoping to find their first retailer at Spring Fair. Several already supply more than 100 independent stockists and arrived at application stage with wholesale infrastructure in place.
What can buyers and brands take from the 2027 winners?
The clearest lesson from this year's cohort is that wholesale readiness is not the same as wholesale newness. These brands are not arriving at Spring Fair to find their first stockist, they’re arriving with proof already in place and using the show to scale what works. For buyers tracking what is coming next across gift, fashion, home and garden retail, the #SBS Village at Spring Fair 2027 is the place to find them before everyone else does.
How can you be part of #SBS x Spring Fair next year?
The competition reopens April 2027, post Spring Fair. Whether you are a past #SBS winner preparing for your first wholesale trade show, a brand looking to build your presence at a UK retail exhibition, or a buyer registering to attend, February at the NEC Birmingham is where 2027 will truly start.
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