Co-founder is a title that sits comfortably with Colette Warren although she herself prefers to be thought of as Chief Product and Innovation Officer. “Andy had been blazing a low carb trail a year before I arrived, my brief was to broaden SRSLY’s appeal by extending our healthier living learnings into a number of equallyr ‘everyday essential’ categories.”
As an SME co-founder, Colette has got used to the constant ups and downs associated with being an agitating underdog brand; this after all is a brand that in its first year saw sales explode from £30k to £1.6m as it quickly established itself as Amazon’s leading provider of low carb bread and rolls. At the same time SRSLY has also endured heart-breaking lows with online sales dwindling by 32% post COVID, PLUS the loss of some very scalable European wins that were an early casualty of the government’s ill-conceived Brexit stance.
‘Fundamentally we know that we’re pioneers within a very important, health-conscious space. In the UK alone 16.8m people are living with obesity, with obesity rates in youngsters alone quadrupling between 1990 and 2022. This is an epidemic make no mistake, a spiralling dietary catastrophe which the NHS declared a ticking time bomb in 2023. With our ardent 350,000+ following and thousands of upbeat Trust Pilot ratings, we know we’re doing our bit to reverse the obesity tide created by deeply engrained Western diets prioritising cheap production conveyor belt strategies, lower grade over-processed ingredients, carb-laden recipes and excessive salt and sugar.’
Data suggests that SRSLY Low Carb’s loyalists consist of 80% who are obese or overweight and committed to losing weight and an over-arching 50% who are working tirelessly to bring Type 2 diabetes under control. The NHS certainly recognises the merits of a low carb diet tackling obesity which is why 40+ keto clinicians are now actively employed by this most trusted of public institutions.
For those who might know the current SRSLY portfolio encompasses, pizza, pizza bases, wraps, condiments, jams, ready meals, seeded loaves, plump squidgy rolls, pasta and most recently angel hair noodles; which in time will pave the way for the ultimate noodle pot!
‘Our products better-for-you DNA is off the charts,’ explains Colette. ‘Take for example our HFSS compliant Spicy Chicken pizza which has a NPS score of 1, which is incredible for a pizza when you consider that any reading under 4 is deemed healthy! Our ready meals, a historical abyss for poor eating practices are a meticulously balanced blend of low carb noodles, veg, aromatic spices and crunchy peanuts which leave you feeling full despite being only a miserly 300(ish) calories per portion! I’m especially proud of our latest offering, a leading edge alternative noodle made from an innovative blend of pea protein, bamboo fibre and psyllium husk powder that offer up 48% more protein and 75% less carbs than their mainstream alternatives.’
2023 in particular was a very mixed year for SRSLY. On the one hand export break-throughs were secured in North America the undisputed amphitheatre for low carb dynamism, an NHS central listing contract became a reality and SRSLY also secured both a prestigious Food & Drink Federation award (Best Emerging SME) for it unique foodie vision and a Top 100 Start-Ups listing (No.42).
On the downside an ambitious bid to catapult ourselves into mainstream bricks and mortar retail fell agonizingly short as for all the positive reviews and trials, SRSLY was simply too early for ‘feeling their way’ supermarkets who are often notoriously slow embracing ‘healthier living’ food movements.
Needless to say; significant funds were spent on this well-intentioned drive, which meant the early part of 2024 in an especially fragile economic environment has prioritised on resetting SRSLY’s compass and honing its brand priorities. North American sales continue to tick over (our 2024 US sales already dwarf our total 2023 US sales). Elsewher SRSLY has doubled-down on its B2C heartland success enhancing both its website and online capacities, whilst stripping out over £250,000 of suffocating costs whilst entering two buoyant food categories (dry pasta £51m and dry pasta £8m).
Perhaps most importantly of all SRSLY has forged a pivotal new distribution alliance with one of the world’s most accomplished multi-region logistics experts (based in UK, Switzerland and Salt Lake City) shredding its logistics costs and placing itself at the front of the queue to reclaim its presence within the 14 EU countries we were servicing prior to Brexit.
Colette concludes by suggesting that, ‘being a seat-of-the-pants SME co-founder certainly isn’t for everyone! Every low is exhausting and taken very personally, yet every high or success means so much more than any win secured within corporate world. In a SME there is no slack for passengers and yet being mad busy is good for the soul and means I always sleep well at the end of the day. Most importantly of all we are a small business affecting lives positively. We are not an oily crisp, yet another needless energy drink or a full fat sausage roll, we’re a far-reaching range of healthier eating possibilities!’
