friends, Button, Troy Sutcliffe, and Jessica Saxby, who are passionate about healthy eating, and saw a gap in Tasmania’s fresh food market. The trio spent time traveling Australia and the world, to come up with a concept that can be most closely described as a mix between Sumo Salad and Subway.   It offers an ever changing assortment of fast and fresh food options, with salads, soups and sandwiches comprising the bulk the Liv-eat  business. “We really just try and keep in touch with what’s happening out there and get ideas from the internet, or when we travel, and try and do little versions of them ourselves,” said Button. To bring the business to the mainland, the owners have developed a franchise model, and are actively seeking suitable franchisees. “We’re obviously trying to make a good impression with these first stores, we want them to be a bit larger to have room for seating, and the environment to get people in on the action,” he said. The Tasmanian stores range in size from 50sqm to 180sqm, but Sydney and Melbourne will target larger sites of 150sqm to 180sqm with good street frontages. “Our first (mainland) store is giving us the most difficulty, just trying to find a really solid, street front store to start up on. “Obviously if we start one up this year, we’ll have to do two and just keep multiplying from that, so it’s at least a five year venture to get those types of numbers.” Since its conception in 2006, Liv-eat has introduced a catering service, which Button says has grown 400 per cent in the last two years to become one of the biggest players in the Tasmanian market. “I won’t disclose what the percentage of online sales is, but we’re growing rapidly,” he said. Customers can place orders easily via the Liv-eat website and select their preferred delivery time. “We have a full catering team so it’s growing quite well, and we hope to be, or maybe already are, the number one for corporate catering in Tassie.”