Start Licensing has signed on to represent the Brand Licensing Europe License This! finalist "Chef & Sue," a weekly comic strip that appears in the newspaper Waitrose.

Created by Ann Edwards, "Chef and Sue" stars Chef, a scruffy little dog, and Sue, a well-groomed ginger cat, that live somewhere in middle England where champagne is always on offer and shopping is a competitive sport.

Start Licensing's Ian Downes chaired the judging committee of this year's License This! competition at BLE in October.

"I was aware of 'Chef & Sue' before License This!, so I was pleasantly surprised to see it was entered in the competition," says Downing. "I felt it was a strong property because of the exposure it had and the themes featured in the stories. I think Chef & Sue has great potential in areas like food, gifting, publishing, homewares, personalized products, kitchenware and greeting cards."