Applied Nutrition founder reveals why he teamed up with Coleen Rooney

Daily Mail​

5 hours ago

Tom Ryder is aghast. I've just told the founder of sports supplements group Applied Nutrition about recently running a 10km in my fastest time for years without drinking any water during the race or taking any special products beforehand. He asks what kept me going.
'Jelly Babies,' I confess.
He hands me a tube of endurance tablets packed with performance-enhancing electrolytes that help maintain hydration.
'Here, you'll go even faster if you have these,' he says in a distinct Scouse accent.
Ryder is convinced that he has caught the wave of a health and wellbeing revolution. A report by retail research group Kantar found that sales of sports nutrition products surged by 45 per cent in the first five months of this year compared with the same period in 2024.
They were the 'biggest winners' as customers shaped their diets around lifestyle choices 'with health, wellbeing and exercise apparently top of many people's minds', Kantar said.
Ryder, 41, has also gained from the boom. He netted £67 million when shares in Applied Nutrition were listed on the London stock market last year. The share price has fallen back since then, but the company is still worth £330 million, valuing Ryder's remaining 34 per cent stake at £110 million. A trading update is due this week.
His is a classic rags-to-riches story of a working-class lad from Liverpool who built a multi-million pound business from scratch.
Raised by his grandparents on a Kirkby council estate following his father's death, Ryder opened his first store, Body Fuel, when he was 18, selling muscle-bulking protein powder, creatine and other supplements while working as a scaffolder for the local council. After six years juggling two jobs, Ryder created Applied Nutrition in 2014 and began working from a small factory in nearby Knowsley.
The business has since mushroomed to become one of Europe's fastest growing brands.
Ryder hasn't let success go to his head. The first time he felt financial freedom was when retailer JD Sports bought a significant stake in the business in 2021. He celebrated by buying a lawnmower.
Ryder is a firm believer in personal discipline.
'I learnt from an early age that if you want something you have to make some sacrifices,' he says.
One of those was not spending enough time with his eldest daughters when they were young and he was busy growing the business.
He's now making up for lost time and admits to becoming 'a dance dad', taking them to numerous festivals and competitions in the North-West.
The entrepreneur is happy to have bucked the trend of home-grown companies that have shunned the London stock market.
Becoming a public company has been 'absolutely amazing, a dream come true', he says, adding: 'It's given us a lot of credibility.'
He also seems relaxed about having a higher public profile, saying: 'I don't mind being in the limelight. This company is my life. It doesn't feel like work.'
But he admits he 'completely underestimated' the extra red tape and reporting rules that came with being a quoted company.
A 'great' team and board, chaired by AJ Bell investment platform founder Andy Bell, helped 'take that burden away from me'.
Applied Nutrition started out selling protein shakes to muscle-bound body-builders in sweaty gyms, but it has evolved into 'a brand for everybody' that appeals to a wider range of consumers, Ryder says.
So how does Applied Nutrition fit in to the weight-loss craze fuelled by drugs such as Ozempic?
Ryder thinks it's going to amplify demand for supplements. Anyone on a weight-loss drug 'is more likely to make health-conscious choices' around protein, vitamins and hydration as 'they are not only losing fat, they are losing muscle, which is not great', he explains, adding: 'They can't eat, they've got no appetite so the alternative is supplements.'
One of the 'mega-trends' he's tapping into is the move from women simply wanting to be skinny to women who want to be healthy, fit and strong.
It's an audience Ryder is eager to reach. 'Wagatha Christie' celebrity Colleen Rooney has been hired as a brand ambassador to fuel demand for protein supplements among these health-conscious women.
'She has moved the dial and been a game-changer for us,' says Ryder. 'Her audience is exactly the female audience we are trying to appeal to.'
Hiring the fellow Liverpudlian, who is also an investor in Applied Nutrition, seems to have paid off.
'Two years ago we were still very male-dominated,' Ryder says. But since then the number of female customers has shot up from 20 to more than 40 per cent, he reveals.
To keep costs down Applied Nutrition mainly sells through distributors in local markets – exporting boxes of supplements from the Liverpool warehouse overseas to places such as the Gulf – but its products can also be found in major supermarkets and online.
Targeting new audiences via social media channels comes with extra marketing costs. But having raised almost £160 million in the flotation, Ryder now has the financial firepower to continue expanding at home and abroad, especially in the US, where the company has an office in Dallas, Texas.
The record price of whey – a vital ingredient in protein shakes – is 'a headwind', Ryder admits, but he has been able to pass on these cost increases to customers in the form of higher prices.
That helps protect profit margins, which at 29 per cent are among the highest in the health and beauty sector – bigger even than those of French giant L'Oreal and only surpassed by Estee Lauder, according to stockbroker Panmure Liberum.
This is remarkable given that Applied Nutrition is a traditional bricks-and-mortar wholesale business, operating from a single warehouse site on the outskirts of Liverpool.
Ryder won't be drawn on the Government's raid on employers' National Insurance Contributions, which has hit many companies, especially growing ones like his, which now employs 200 staff.
'What can you do?' he asks. 'We don't get caught up in what goes on from a political standpoint. We just get on with what we've got to do.'
So do the supplements he sells really work? Can they actually improve performance?
Well, correlation does not equal causation, but after swallowing some of Ryder's endurance tablets a few days after the interview, I ran an even faster 10k time.
Ryder will feel vindicated.