AN entrepreneur who pitched her business to BBC Two's Dragons' Den investors says although she did not receive an offer she has big plans for the future and one day hopes to be in their seats.

Rayeesa Asghar-Sandys, founder of the curry sauce brand ‘Spiced by Rayeesa', says appearing on the BBC show was something she had never imagined doing before this year.

Known as ‘The Spiced Girl’, Rayeesa, a former Met police officer, brought her own heat to the Den when she gave her pitch inviting investment into her frozen curry sauce business.

After a confident pitch, Rayeesa, who lives in Mordiford, then faced fiery questioning, starting with Touker Suleyman who dived into the figures.

She said: "Walking through the doors was very surreal. It was like you are literally walking into a film set or something and it's not really you, but it is you, and somehow your legs are walking and you're there.

"As soon as I started speaking I looked at all the dragons and smiled and thought 'this is my moment' and I just reeled off the pitch and it was pretty much exactly what I had rehearsed. And then there was a big sigh of relief at the end.

"I think I remembered all the right figures. The hours of rehearsing paid off, but it was very intense when you get these questions fired at you. I tried to remember my old police skills and kept calm and listened carefully.”

Although she did not walk away with any offers of investment, she received high praise from all the Dragons.

Peter Jones, although very complimentary about the product itself, was concerned that it would require a bigger budget to market to the supermarkets.

New dragon, Tej Lalvani advised Rayeesa to aim at online retailers and build the brand by marketing online through blogs.

"We are taking the advice on board and are already actioning it – things like going online as fast as we possibly can, ideally through a national online supermarket like Ocado but there could be other smaller online outlets that would take us on. The response from the show has been phenomenal," she said.

"We have got so many emails, Facebook and Twitter messages from all over the country asking where they can get our sauce.

"What encourages me is that people love the concept of a healthy, fresh sauce so although the dragons loved the product they couldn't see how customers were going to go for it but customers are ready they just need a way of getting hold of them really."

Spiced by Rayeesa was launched in June 2015. The concept was to bring a totally fresh way of cooking great tasting Indian food, simply, and healthily.

The sauces as indicated by the name ‘Spiced’ are frozen at the point of perfection, and being completely fresh they have no additives or preservatives while being low fat, low salt and no added sugar.

"We have done a lot of legwork and hard-work and now it's really about taking that step to increase the volume and get the online presence," she added.

"I was very grateful for the opportunity. I feel very honoured to have even had the opportunity to present my business to these incredibly successful people who I admire and one day I aspire to be in their shoes and perhaps be on one of those seats."