“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.”