Meet the maker: GSN
“Nobody could offer us a route to market so we created our own distribution channel,” Craig Allen tells Food & Drink Technology. “We provide healthy eating to 1,000s of people in spaces you typically wouldn’t find a healthy option including NHS Hospitals, Royal Marine barracks, coffee shops and garage forecourts. We’ve built a network of over 450 stockists by consistently reinvesting profits back into GSN.
“We have never taken external investment and grown organically through our 12 years of trading. We’ve seen many many brands come and go in our time and our mentality of ‘Think Small Dream Big’ has helped us achieve this success and not chase status. We are debt free and extremely lean in our overheads, with eight full time staff and a turnover tracking £7m this calendar year.”
Recently, GSN announced it is well on its way to selling its 10,000,000th protein-rich frozen ready meals in its bustling capacity as one of the UK’s leading healthy, frozen food brands.
In the last year, frozen ready meal sales have surged by 17% year-on-year, a trend that began with less eating out during Covid that has subsequently evolved into an active quest for generous portions, quality ingredients and everyday affordable price points.
Perhaps most interestingly of all, younger audiences with their increasingly hectic lifestyles are revisiting the ready meals fray. Yes, convenience remains a key driver but other mealtime priorities are coming to the fore which have significantly moved the ready meal goalposts: protein rich, significantly reduced quotas of unwelcome salt, sugar and lazy calories and more ambitious flavour profiles.
Pots of Gold ready meal range was the niggling, back-of-head vision of Craig Allen who had long dreamed of creating a sports-related start-up that mirrored his healthier living aspirations; an everyday accessible brand that championed healthy, tasty and convenient ready meal choices at everyday affordable price points.
Having enrolled on a Business Enterprise course at university to fine-tune this thinking Allen quickly came to the realisation that hands-on learning not lecture theatres and endless note scribbling was the best way to shape his business model, so joined the family’s meat trading business to learn his trade. Moving forward a few months and the step change moment for Allen was a chance conversation with a restaurant client keen to show him the time-saving steamed chicken he was using.
“The essential idea was brilliant, but the execution poor,” explains Allen, “because the chicken was both watery and awash with unwelcome e-numbers. I could see the far-reaching potential of sourcing a superior, clean deck alternative and set to work.”
Fast forward a few months and he had purchased and converted a Tesco van with three chest freezers in the middle compartment and 225 bags of steamed chicken in the freezer, he then spent the next three years trundling up and down the motorway in his speed restricted 56 mph van talking to anyone who’d listen.
The next major milestone in the Gold Standard Nutrition journey was identifying the opportunity posed by indie gyms for their members. Step forward GSN’s best-selling Pots of Gold, a 20-strong range of generously portioned Pots that showcases convenient frozen ready meals. Word spread and Pots of Gold are not only available in 450+ gyms and shops they’re also securing interest in retail.
Questions for the director: Craig Allen
How would you describe the brand’s ethos and your signature product(s)?
As a brand we live and breathe the lifestyle of our customer base, with a passion for a healthy lifestyle and great tasting convenient foods, no product would ever pass through NPD if it wasn’t something that we wouldn’t genuinely use ourselves because we know that a product that works for us will work for others. The Katsu curry is our best seller and demonstrates what we stand for perfectly, great tasting, convenient, amazing value, proven the test of time after six years of being our best selling product and healthy, but never perfect.
Where are you based?
We are based in Selby, North Yorkshire. A rural town with little reach to highly skilled staff that are usually found in city centres, this has been a challenge for us over the years, this has meant we have found hiring challenging, however once people come they don’t tend to leave with staff turnover extremely low and the ones that have left have gone on to higher paid jobs that GSN has provided the skills to qualify – head account manager of Tesco poultry; head of marketing at Ministry of Fitness.
Tell us about the processes used to create the range?
A product needs to pass the internal test before it is progressed and would be something that we would eat on a day to day basis.
From concept to full packaging takes us around 12 weeks to bring a product to market. We know what works and what doesn’t work from 12 years of working to find the sweet spot between health, taste and convenience. New product Ideas usually stem from the office where we feel there is a gap in the range or seeing a current up and coming trend in street food that would work well in a Pot o Gold format. So we work hard to stay relevant and ahead of the competition when thinking about new flavours.
Which is your most popular product – and why?
Our most popular product is the Breaded Chicken Katsu Curry, for £3.50 you get a product that is 31g protein, low sugar, tastes as good as a restaurant alternative and is ready in just six minutes. We make all of our sauces on site at the factory and in this case we also hand make the bite size pieces of panko chicken. This product could easily sell all day for £6+ and I think that’s why people come back time and time again to buy our famous Katsu curry.
Do you have a favourite?
Pasta Bolognese Pot O Gold. That’s because it was designed to match the pasta bolognese that I make at home and untraditionally I have always included chorizo in my recipe, nobody at the office could see this working but I pulled rank and it’s now been in the top three for five years and a household favourite with my kids as well.
What are your hopes for the brand?
The mission for the brand is to be recognised as the UKs favourite healthy frozen food brand so we work each day on making that dream become a reality.
If you were to share any words of wisdom with readers looking to start a food/drink business – what would you say?
Still to this day I question myself as to whether or not I’m qualified to run a successful business – even after 12 years. The truth is nobody can tell you to do it, you need to want to do it. Nobody can tell you exactly how to do it, but if you throw yourself in the deep end and tread water long enough then you will figure it out. Providing you have passion, patience and plenty of energy then anything is possible.
What’s been your highlight?
I have a few. One was only the other week when we launched a new flavour and did it by hosting an ambassador party at the Everlast Gyms head office. The second, was being in the middle of 50+ people all selling GSN to me and not the other way round. The shared enthusiasm and love for GSN really hit home for me and when I reflected on my drive home from the event it was a very proud feeling to see that GSN was able to be the centrepiece and reason for such an incredible day.
What’s coming up for you over the coming months?
The first quarter of 2024 has been a really busy few months and the second quarter will see us embed two new starters, eight new products and road-mapping more launch activations for the GSN Foodtruck. We have a new website going live in the middle of May and I’ll be heading out on more podcasts to showcase the GSN story in our own unique way.
