How Applied Nutrition began in a small shop in Kirkby

When Tom Ryder first took over a small supplements brand in 2014, he had big aspirations for the company.

“We wanted to be the most world’s most trusted sports nutrition health and wellness brand,” he said of the firm, Applied Nutrition.

“But back then you wouldn’t say it out loud. I wouldn’t anyway.

“Because you just didn’t want the negative backlash of people saying ‘you’re a nobody, you’re just a small brand from Kirkby’.

Fast forward to more than a decade later and the firm, which is still based in Liverpool, sells its range of products in more than 85 countries.

For the financial year ending 31 July 2025, Applied Nutrition achieved £107.1m in revenue.

The business has attracted brand ambassadors including Coleen Rooney and mixed martial arts fighter Paddy ‘The Baddy’ Pimblett, and recently signed a deal with Morrisons that will see the retailer produce and sell Applied Nutrition-branded meals and food products.

It all began in a shop in Kirkby, which Ryder, now 42, set up while still working on a building site when he was 18 years old.

After leaving school, he began a trainee apprenticeship in scaffolding but quickly realised there was a growing demand for supplements.

“I was always working out and I was obsessed with supplements, even though it wasn’t mainstream back then,” he said.

“It was just something that I just literally fell into – ingredients, dosages, the benefits.

“So I opened a small store and I was just selling other brands, like predominantly US brands back then. It sort of grew from there.”

At this point, Ryder realised he wanted to work solely in sports nutrition. He left his scaffolding job at Liverpool City Council, opened more stores and started selling wholesale.

“This was really the pivotal point,” he said. “I started then getting a feel for how to sell brands to other independent stores, gyms and how to import products.”

By 2014, he wanted to stop selling other people’s brands.

“Back then Applied Nutrition was a brand that I stocked but it was in decline,” he said. “They only had one product of note.

“I felt I understood why it was declining and I thought if I could take this brand over, I could make some changes to it.

“I think I could turn the trajectory and start growing it. That’s what I’ve done.”

Ryder made a number of changes to the product, including reducing the sugar, changing the pack size and introducing some new flavours.

“We literally started building momentum from the get go,” he said.

New products followed and this inspired Ryder to bring manufacturing in-house. With the guidance of a consultant, he built a small room within the warehouse and hired four employees, three of whom are still with the firm.

“I felt I could bring products to the market that consumers wanted. I was a 100% diehard supplement consumer,” he said.

Now the company employs just under 300 people.

Ryder said his advice to anyone thinking of setting up a business was “just do it”.

“I’ve never been one of those people who were hesitant over starting something,” he said. “If I’ve got my heart set on something, I’ll just do it.

“I think if I’d have spoken to people back then before I started manufacturing supplements in a small warehouse in a small room that’s built in a small warehouse in Kirkby, if I had gone around and asked other brands, I would have got talked down within five minutes.

“But I didn’t. I just had something in my heart that I wanted to do, and I thought, you know what, I’m gonna do it.”