Rapidly growing supplement brand Bulk has fallen into the red as growth slowed dramatically in 2024.
A “year of transformation”, including major investments in technology and infrastructure, led to significant disruption to Bulk’s sales.
While turnover grew 4.6% to £128.8m in the year to 31 December 2024, this growth fell far short of previous years’ performance, which saw Bulk grow 41% in 2022 and a further 30% in 2023.
The slump in growth sent Bulk into an operating loss of £87k, having reported a £6.6m operating profit the year before, and a pre-tax loss of £1m.
Despite the impact on the company’s finances, a Bulk spokesman said the “once in a decade” internal transformation projects had left the company stronger than ever.
In building an entirely new website architecture for the company’s 16 localised DTC websites across the UK and Europe, the business encountered “greater complexity and disruption than anticipated”, impacting trading performance “through the majority of 2024”.
“We took steps through 2024/2025 to remedy the issues,” the spokesman said.
The company has also moved its UK operations to a new, highly automated third-party logistics facility in the Midlands’ ‘golden triangle’ to optimise UK delivery. Nearly a third (30%) more efficient than Bulk’s previous site, it has 100,000 pallet slots and has cut a full day from the company’s lead times.
Bulk also implemented a full new ERP to connect warehouses directly to its website, allowing the company to update stock in real time and upgrading its forecasting accuracy.
While both the move to a new logistics site and the implementation of a new ERP took less time than anticipated, the combined impact of the changes still impacted Bulk’s ability to trade efficiently, according to its company accounts.
A full redesign of all 1,500 SKUs across the Bulk portfolio marked the fourth major project of the year.
“The investments we made in 2024 were about building for the long term,” said Bulk CEO Adam Rossiter. “We’ve cut delivery times, removed barriers to scaling, and built an operation that can support record growth for years to come, across the globe.”
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