{"id":253204,"date":"2026-01-19T22:27:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T22:27:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/253204\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T22:27:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T22:27:14","slug":"how-applied-nutrition-began-in-a-small-shop-in-kirkby-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/253204\/","title":{"rendered":"How Applied Nutrition began in a small shop in Kirkby"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AppliedApplied Nutrition<\/p>\n

Tom Ryder noticed demand for supplements was skyrocketing in 2014<\/p>\n

When Tom Ryder first took over a small supplements brand in 2014, he had big aspirations for the company.<\/p>\n

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

“But back then you wouldn’t say it out loud. I wouldn’t anyway. <\/p>\n

“Because you just didn’t want the negative backlash of people saying ‘you’re a nobody, you’re just a small brand from Kirkby’.”<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

For the financial year ending 31 July 2025, Applied Nutrition achieved \u00a3107.1m in revenue.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

After leaving school, he began a trainee apprenticeship in scaffolding but quickly realised there was a growing demand for supplements.<\/p>\n

\"AppliedApplied Nutrition<\/p>\n

The brand has had support from celebrities including Coleen Rooney and Paddy ‘The Baddy’ Pimblett<\/p>\n

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

“It was just something that I just literally fell into – ingredients, dosages, the benefits.<\/p>\n

“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.”<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

“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.”<\/p>\n

By 2014, he wanted to stop selling other people’s brands. <\/p>\n

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

“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. <\/p>\n

“I think I could turn the trajectory and start growing it. That’s what I’ve done.”<\/p>\n

\"AppliedApplied Nutrition<\/p>\n

Ryder says he had never been hesitant about setting up a business<\/p>\n

Ryder made a number of changes to the product, including reducing the sugar, changing the pack size and introducing some new flavours.<\/p>\n

“We literally started building momentum from the get go,” he said.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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

Now the company employs just under 300 people.<\/p>\n

Ryder said his advice to anyone thinking of setting up a business was “just do it”.<\/p>\n

“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. <\/p>\n

“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.<\/p>\n

“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.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Applied Nutrition Tom Ryder noticed demand for supplements was skyrocketing in 2014 When Tom Ryder first took over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":253205,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[103,61,60,446],"class_list":{"0":"post-253204","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nutrition","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-nutrition"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}