A small enterprise in Pembrokeshire which has created the world’s first 100% organic daily meal replacement bar has become a million-pound business.
Set to rival larger brands such as Huel, Tenby-based Human Food has seen 100% year-on-year growth since it launched in 2019 and is on track to achieve a turnover of £1m this year.
Human Food is the brainchild of Ky Wright, who first came up with the concept in 2016 after becoming vegan around the same time that a family member was prescribed a meal replacement drink to address their ongoing health issues.
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“At the time meal replacements were kind of emerging in the market,” said Mr Wright, a Tenby-local who previously ran a frozen yoghurt business called Lick in Brighton.
“I liked the concept of a meal replacement product but all the brands on the market contain sweeteners, soy, flavourings and synthetic vitamins and minerals. That’s significant because it's been proven in a huge number of studies that your body can’t actually process synthetic vitamins and minerals,” he said.
Human Food meal replacement bars are vegan and made from organic ingredients - which Mr Wright says is the brand’s main unique selling point.
“That’s the key difference between Human Food and our competitors. We are organic and use natural vitamins and minerals from food sources in our bars. At the moment, we’re the only organic product in the category globally,” he said.
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“It’s the first product of its type where it has the nutritional density of something like a meal replacement but where all the nutrients are organic.”
It’s this USP that has allowed Human Food to identify a gap in the food supplement market which has contributed to its 100% year-on-year growth.
The brand sells the products direct to consumers through its website and has started selling into the independent retail market around the 海角视频.
Mr Wright said they are also in talks with a number of larger retailers and are about to launch into Ocado.
The business was also invited onto Amazon’s Launchpad Sustainability Accelerator programme which has given the brand increased exposure and helped it towards its £1m turnover milestone.
“Since joining Amazon, they have helped us to achieve 100% growth year-on-year,” said Mr Wright.
“There are so many opportunities that we can take advantage of as a growing business and the programme has provided us with the advice, tools and resources to help our brand step up and stand out against others.”
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The business is now looking to employ four more staff members to join its six-strong team to meet growth demand.
It has also started exporting a small volume to markets in the EU and, while still only a small part of the business’ sales, Mr Wright is eyeing future exports markets such as the US.
Despite the rapid growth since it launched in 2019, it took three years of funding, research and development to take the bars from a concept to fully-formed products ready for launch.
In 2018, the brand raised over £80,000 via funding platform Kickstarter.
The brand became the most funded vegan product ever to be supported through crowdfunding which allowed it to go on to secure venture capital funding.
On product development, the business worked with Swansea University and Aberystwyth University to undertake research to create the nutritionally dense bar.
“We’ve been working with both universities to do ongoing clinical research on the bars,” said Mr Wright. “We had a study completed with Swansea University which looked at the glucose response, satiety, and reaction response from the bars.”
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“It got amazing results. One of the most interesting was that all the bars improved reaction response. Our yellow, turmeric bar performed the best and improved reaction times by over 10%,” he added.
This academic research has seen the bars become popular with athletes and health professionals.
“Our bars are stocked by the Natural Dispensary which is the leading distributor for medicinal foods and natural medicines. Human Food is prescribed by a lot of doctors and naturopaths and it’s known as functional medicine.”
The business also supplies the NHS and healthcare charity Nuffield Health.
“Nuffield Health uses it to assist with intermittent fasting, because it’s so nutritionally dense and easy to digest. It’s the ideal food for that,” he said.
While Human Food has made an impact in the athletics and healthcare market, the brand is still working on breaking into the mainstream.
“Ultimately the idea is for it to be a mainstream product for everybody,” said Mr Wright.
“That’s been a challenge because I didn’t even know myself, until I started developing Human Food, that there was a difference between natural and synthetic vitamins and minerals in meal replacement products. It’s hard to sell that to people because they’re not aware of there being an issue there.”
Now looking to enter the meal replacement drinks market dominated by Slimfast and Huel, Mr Wright said the brand will be launching a range of shakes in the next four months.
“We’re going to launch a powdered shake version of the product, which will be organic, vegan and have the same nutritional profile as the bar.”
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