Cornwall-based entrepreneur Florence Sargent has won the SeedLegals Inspiring Entrepreneur Award 2026, recognising the story behind REDSCUE, her sports nutrition brand, and her mission to improve understanding of underfuelling in sport. The award comes as she prepares to lead the second year of Global REDs Awareness Month this November.
PENZANCE, CORNWALL — October 2026
Florence Sargent, founder of REDSCUE and Global REDs Awareness Day, has won the SeedLegals Inspiring Entrepreneur Award 2026, marking a significant milestone in her journey from an injured teenage athlete to an entrepreneur working to change how athletes think about fuelling, performance and recovery.
The award recognises the ambition and purpose behind REDSCUE, a sports nutrition brand created from Sargent’s own experience of Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (REDs). It also comes ahead of Global REDs Awareness Month, which returns for its second year from 1–30 November 2026, bringing athletes, coaches, healthcare professionals, sports organisations and the wider public together to improve awareness and encourage practical change.
From losing the sport she loved to building a business with a purpose
Sargent’s journey began at 17, when she was pursuing a Division I athletics scholarship in the United States. As a former Spanish national track and field athlete, sport had become central to her identity and future ambitions. However, while training hard in a coaching environment shaped by comparison and pressure to perform, she was unknowingly underfuelling.
At the time, she did not understand REDs or how much energy her body needed to support both training and everyday life. Then she tore her Achilles.
The injury cost her the scholarship she had been working towards and had consequences that extended well beyond physical recovery, affecting her identity, confidence, happiness and future plans.
The experience left her with a question that would eventually shape her business: why had she not known what her body needed?
Why were athletes encouraged to push harder without always understanding the importance of adequate fuelling? Why was there so little accessible education about energy availability, recovery and the risks of underfuelling? And why did conversations about athlete performance so often overlook the foundations that make training sustainable?
Sargent could not change what happened to her as a teenager, but she could use that experience to help other athletes access better information, better fuelling options and a different narrative around food and performance.
That became REDSCUE — bringing together REDs and rescue.
REDSCUE: challenging the way athletes fuel
REDSCUE was founded to make sports fuelling more accessible through food-first, carbohydrate-first products and education. Its energy bars are made using cassava and plantain, drawing inspiration from traditional foods and the fuelling practices Sargent encountered around international cross-country competitions, including Cross de Italica.
The brand challenges the idea that sports nutrition needs to be complicated, restrictive or centred on protein alone. Instead, REDSCUE places carbohydrates at the heart of fuelling, recognising their role in supporting training and endurance performance.
From making her first bars in her kitchen to supporting athletes and reaching sporting communities, Sargent has been building a business shaped by a wider purpose: helping people fuel the sport they love without fear.
But REDSCUE has never been intended to be just an energy bar brand. For Sargent, the products represent the practical side of the mission; education, awareness and community are equally important to changing the conversations surrounding athlete wellbeing.
“Your health should never be the price you pay for doing the sport you love,” says Sargent.
The SeedLegals Inspiring Entrepreneur Award 2026 recognises this combination of lived experience, product development and purpose-led entrepreneurship.
Global REDs Awareness Month returns for its second year
Alongside building REDSCUE, Sargent founded Global REDs Awareness Day in 2025 to bring greater attention to Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport and encourage more open conversations across the sporting community.
In 2026, the initiative expands into a month-long campaign, running from 1–30 November, with Global REDs Awareness Week taking place from 16–22 November and Global REDs Awareness Day on Saturday 21 November.
The campaign theme is:
“Small actions. Earlier conversations. Practical change.”
REDs can affect athletes across different sports and levels of participation. It occurs when energy intake is insufficient to meet the demands of exercise and the body’s other essential functions. It can affect health, recovery, training adaptation and performance, with consequences that may extend beyond sport.
Yet discussions about REDs can remain fragmented, with fuelling, training load, injury, recovery, healthcare and sporting culture often addressed separately.
Global REDs Awareness Month aims to connect these conversations, bringing together different perspectives and lived experiences to improve understanding, challenge assumptions and encourage earlier action.
The campaign is designed not simply to raise awareness for a day, but to provide opportunities for people to learn, share experiences, ask questions and put knowledge into practice.
“While REDSCUE’s energy bars provide a practical approach to sports fuelling, Global REDs Awareness Month represents the education and awareness side of our mission. Now in its second year, the campaign brings together different perspectives across fuelling, nutrition, training, performance, injury, recovery, healthcare, coaching and sporting culture to explore REDs in its entirety. It’s about connecting conversations that are too often treated separately, sharing knowledge and lived experiences, challenging existing assumptions and encouraging earlier conversations. By bringing the wider sporting community together, we want to turn awareness into understanding and practical action, helping create a better environment for everyone in sport,” says Sargent.
Three webinars to recognise, understand and create change
A central part of the 2026 campaign is a three-part webinar series, bringing together different perspectives on REDs and its implications for athletes and the people who support them.
Monday 16 November — RECOGNISE: “The Hidden Side of REDs”
Featuring Pippa Woolven, Maddy Reynolds and Luke Gunn, this session will explore the realities of REDs and the importance of recognising the signs and experiences that can otherwise go unnoticed.
Wednesday 18 November — UNDERSTAND: “Fuel to Perform. Fuel for Life.”
Featuring Darren Delaney, Jules Strauss, Theresa DeLorenzo and Lauren Charlton, this session will explore fuelling, energy needs and the relationship between nutrition, performance and longer-term wellbeing.
Friday 20 November — CHANGE: “Winning at What Cost?”
Featuring Rebecca McConville, Juliette Perry and Jake Liam Smith, this session will examine the wider sporting environment and the changes needed to support athletes more effectively.
The series is intended to move from recognition to understanding and action, encouraging participants to consider not only what REDs is, but how conversations, practices and environments can change.
Tickets and registration details are available through Eventbrite:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/ticket-global-reds-awareness-2026-events-tickets-1975236711175
Registration includes a discount code for REDSCUE energy bars. Recorded sessions will also be available to purchase as a bundle after the live events, with further details to be announced.
How to get involved throughout November
Global REDs Awareness Month is designed to involve people beyond the webinars, with opportunities for athletes, parents, coaches, clubs, schools, universities, gyms, healthcare professionals and businesses to participate.
Activities include:
- REDS Advent: 30 Days of REDSCUE. Daily content, resources and conversations throughout November, exploring different aspects of REDs and athlete fuelling.
- Global REDs Awareness Day video challenge. Participants are invited to record a 30–60-second video answering the question, “What does Global REDs Awareness Day mean to you?” Videos can be shared on Instagram from 1 November using #GlobalREDsAwareness and #FuelWithoutFear. Official giveaway instructions will be shared through REDSCUE’s Instagram account.
- Educational resources and campaign materials. Canva templates, posters and educational resources will help schools, universities, gyms, clubs and workplaces take part and share the campaign.
- Webinars and shared learning. Participants can register for the three-part webinar series and share the sessions with their sporting communities.
- Community conversations and campaign content. Individuals and organisations can share campaign posts, discuss fuelling and recovery, and encourage earlier conversations about REDs.
- Further campaign activities. Giveaways, discount codes and additional resources will be shared throughout the month, alongside a campaign Spotify playlist.
People can follow @red_scue_ on Instagram for announcements, resources and participation details, or send a direct message containing “REDS” to find out more.
The aim is to make participation accessible, whether someone is an athlete sharing their experience, a coach starting a conversation with their team, a parent seeking better information, or an organisation helping its community understand REDs.
Turning personal experience into practical change
For Sargent, the award and the awareness campaign represent two connected parts of the same mission: making sure other athletes have access to the knowledge and support she wishes she had received earlier.
Her experience of losing the sport she loved remains central to why she continues to build REDSCUE and lead Global REDs Awareness Month.
The message behind both initiatives is that performance should not come at the expense of health, and that better outcomes require more than individual athletes being told to make different choices. They also require accessible information, appropriate support and sporting environments in which fuelling, recovery and wellbeing can be discussed openly.
As REDSCUE enters its next stage of growth, the 2026 SeedLegals Inspiring Entrepreneur Award provides recognition for the business and the purpose behind it. Global REDs Awareness Month offers an opportunity to take that mission beyond the products and into the wider sporting community.
Because changing the conversation around REDs starts with small actions — but those actions can help create lasting change.
Florence Sargent
Founder, REDSCUE
Email: redscue.bar@gmail.com
Website: https://red-scue.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/red_scue_/
