The sweetest thing

Val Johnson launched her sweet cart business at Knebworth Wedding Show this year and has gone on to X-Factor success

When Val Johnson launched her sweet cart business, SweetHerts, at our Knebworth wedding show in January this year, she couldn’t have imagined she would go on to find TV stardom with TV’s The Xtra Factor and The X-Factor.

Val says: “At the beginning of August I received a call from a girl who worked for The Xtra Facor. She told me that they were filming a street party for the opening credits of the tenth anniversary of the Xtra Factor and were looking for a sweet cart to be included, would I like to take part?”

Of course, Val jumped at the chance and went to Russell Square to film: “We spent the whole day filming with contestants from previous years and the presenters Caroline Flack and Matt Richardson,” she says. “When the first episode was shown on 31st August, you could see me with my cart twice – the clip is now on my website, www.sweetherts.co.uk.

“After filming I was talking to a girl who works for Simon Cowell’s company SYCO, who asked us if we could supply popcorn as she was organising the press launch for X-Factor. So, we made 200 tubs of popcorn, my boyfriend who is a printer, printed the labels with Sweet Herts name on it and we delivered the tubs to the Mayfair Hotel, London at 7am on 29th August and sat back and watched as several journalists tweeted photos of our popcorn tubs. Since then our website has had over 500 hits!

“Who would have thought that when I started my sweet cart business with my debut at the Knebworth wedding show in January this year, that I would be filming for The Xtra Factor and making popcorn for The X-Factor!”