Posted on April - 22 - 2010
Nutrition Point has an appetite for gluten-free growth
When Nutrition Point managing director Chris Hook wants to find people to test the wheat and gluten-free products his company supplies, he doesn’t look far.
His wife Julie and son Joe both have wheat intolerance, and are enthusiastic product testers. “They are my best critics,” he says.
But it wasn’t family connections that spurred the 52-year-old entrepreneur to launch the company in 1998. His previous 20 years in business had included working for another wheat-free producer whose products he thought could be improved.
It wasn’t until 2001, however, when Sainsbury’s first agreed to take on the company’s Dietary Specials (DS) range, that the initial hard work involved in setting up a company seemed to be paying off.
Deals with Asda and other food retailers soon followed. DS is now the best-selling gluten and wheat-free brand in the UK.
This week the company signed a deal to bring frozen gluten and wheat-free products to Tesco for the first time.
But it was arguably Nutrition Point’s takeover by Dr Schär, the European market leader in such products, in 2002 that really made the business take off. From £1.5m at the time of the takeover, turnover has now grown to £24m.
Mr Hook says the takeover by Dr Schär, based in the German-speaking part of Italy, was very much part of his plans to remain a sales and marketing-only operation.
Based in Warrington, the company employs 40 people itself. “My whole experience had been in sales and marketing,” he says. “I didn’t want to get into manufacturing in an area I didn’t particularly know.”
Dr Schär now provides all Nutrition Point’s bread products, while frozen products are supplied by third parties within the UK, but Mr Hook isn’t worried about not owning the means of production.
A bigger parent company has also helped lead to mightier acquisitions: Dr Schär took over Glutafin, Nutrition Point’s main UK rival, in 2006, which it then sold on within the group. Nutrition Point itself acquired the Trufree band in 2007.
Servicing the debt taken on for these acquisitions, however, has caused a dent in the company’s bottom line, as has the weakening pound.
“Three years ago we were getting 1.4 euros to the pound,” says Mr Hook. “Now it’s nearer 1.1.”
Nevertheless, the company is still making a profit, and is looking to move more into the convenience store market in future.
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