A BLACK pudding entrepreneur has reached the final of a national competition for Britain's brightest new businesses.

Debbie Pierce, of Waterside Close, Radcliffe, who started working on Bury Market stalls when she was 12, is helping to boost the popularity of the traditional delicacy throughout the UK.

The Bury Black Pudding Company Ltd, which she founded in May 2002, has fought off competition from hundreds of other new businesses to reach the national final of the HSBC Start-Up Stars Awards 2003.

She is one of ten finalists competing for a £20,000 prize to be presented at the Savoy Hotel in London on October 2.

Debbie (34), who went to Derby School in Bury, took the plunge when she saw that puddings sold on the market were finding their way to Bury exiles and others throughout the country.

She set up a website (www.buryblackpuddings.co.uk) after receiving help from Business Link and Bury Council. It received a boost when television cameras picked her out in the crowd at Wimbledon last year, waving an advertisement for her business attached to a St George's flag.

Since then, Debbie and business partner Charlotte Butterfield have seen web business grow with 90 per cent of it coming from the south of England, where black puddings are not generally available.

After a turnover of £29,000 in year one, projected sales for the second year are already £500,000.

Reaching the final has already earned Debbie £4,000 in consultancy services from business specialists Croner Consulting and business software company Intuit.