It started with a shop in Kirkby and now we're worth £350m

The past decade has been very busy for Tom Ryder. In 2014, having run a sports nutrition shop in Kirkby and worked in wholesale, he set up the company Applied Nutrition to sell his own range of supplements.

Ten years on, the company's products are now found in more than 80 countries, it is backed by JD Sports and supported by famous names including Coleen Rooney, Huyton-born Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) star Paddy 'The Baddy' Pimblett, legendary cyclist Bradley Wiggins, as well as football clubs Glasgow Rangers and Fulham. Last month the company began trading on the London Stock Exchange's main market with a valuation of around £350m.

It is fair to say it has been quite the rise from Applied Nutrition's beginnings in Kirkby, where Tom took over the brand and turned it into his own company. Reflecting on that journey, CEO Tom, 41, from Kirkby, this week spoke to the ECHO from Applied Nutrition's headquarters at the Knowsley Industrial Park.

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About the company's origins, he said: "This is an industry that I've been in all of my life. Since leaving school, I've always had a passion for supplements, it's something I've always been fascinated with.

"Being a gym-goer from an early age and wanting to understand more about supplement ingredients, dosages, the benefits of them led to opening a small independent store (found off Glovers Brow in Kirkby) not long after I left school. That developed into a couple more stores and some wholesaling.

"I started buying in certain brands from Europe and predominantly US brands - selling to other independent stores and gyms. But then in 2014, I set up Applied Nutrition - I wanted my own brand.

"Applied Nutrition was a brand that I stocked - it had one product of note called Critical Mass. When I took over the Applied Nutrition brand in 2014 it was on a decline - I felt I understood why it was on and I felt that I could turn it around if I could make some changes to it.

"That's what I did - I made those fundamental changes, I started gathering momentum with that particular product and I started to grow out a range then on the back of Critical Mass. I brought production in house in 2016 and took on my first few employees and we went from there.

"As we grew, we started to grow out the manufacturing capabilities, started knocking through warehouses and building more manufacturing rooms. We continued to grow that way, all the way up to 2020 when we moved into where we are now - this purpose-built facility."

The company now employs more than 200 people at its Merseyside base - where the vast majority of its manufacturing takes place - and has 12 staff members working its US office in Dallas, Texas. In the UK, its products - which include whey protein, creatine, vitamins, tablets and 'body fuel' - are found in major retailers like Tesco, Asda and Holland & Barrett. Across the Atlantic, it is the only non-US sports nutrition brand found on the shelves of Walmart - the world's biggest grocer.

For Tom, taking his brand worldwide has been a point of real satisfaction. He explained: "It's a proud moment when we go into these big stores - Walmart is the biggest grocer on the planet - and when you pick that product up and it says 'manufactured in Knowsley'. It's a nice thing."

Though it has found worldwide success, Applied Nutrition is very much rooted in Merseyside - it recently raised more than £165,000 for Alder Hey, its products are seen across the region's gyms and a number of its high profile ambassadors are from the region. The company is supported by the aforementioned Paddy 'The Baddy' and his fellow MMA fighter, Norris Green-born 'Meatball' Molly McCann.

Coleen became another high-profile Scouse ambassador for the brand last month. Chief operating officer Steven Granite, 45, who grew up with Tom in Kirkby, told the ECHO about the importance of Coleen's backing and how it came about.

He said: "Sports nutrition in general - and this business - has gone from being focused on body builders, elite athletes or elite gym goers to the everyday user. It is a much wider consumer base that uses sports nutrition and health and wellness products.

"We were conscious that we had a lot of male ambassadors like Paddy 'The Baddy' and Bradley Wiggins and a lot of football teams like Fulham and Rangers, but we didn't have a lot for our female consumers.

"We were growing really fast on that side of the business and it's a massive market, so we thought we needed someone to be the female face of the brand. With Coleen being a user of the products anyway - and we had a connection through her brother - we just had a chat and she was made up.

"We think she's perfect as a female face of the brand - she's Liverpool-born, she encapsulates everything that is life for a working mum, she has a lot to juggle but still manages to keep herself in good shape, look after herself and stay healthy. We thought she was a great ambassador for us and we share a lot of the same values."

Coleen is not just an ambassador, she has invested in the company as well. She has also been joined by a number of high-profile investors since the company has floated on the stock market - including Lancashire billionaire Mohsin Issa.

About trading on the London Stock Exchange, Tom said: "It is something that we could only have dreamed of years ago. It's something that we did dream about back in 2021 after the JD deal. It was something that Steve and I said we would absolutely love to do as we grow.

"Thank god the opportunity came. We embarked upon the journey in August last year and we finally rang the bell a couple of weeks ago.

"The support that we've had - not only from Coleen but our cornerstone investors and a lot of North West entrepreneurs wanting to invest with us - we've been humbled by it. The support that we've had from these people who see the journey that we're on, see where we've come from, can see where we're going and want to be part of the journey with us. It's great for us."

Looking ahead at that journey, Tom and Steven want to continue to grow the company - taking up more shelf space, moving into new territories and developing new products. No matter what happens though, they have no desire to move their business out of Merseyside.

Tom explained: "We're Liverpool lads - our business was born here. We have never even considered moving out of Liverpool. Why would we?

"Our team is here, the team that we have here has been with us for a long, long time. Uprooting and moving would have no reason to it.

"We're proud of where we're from and we're going to be here forever. Yes - we might open more facilities globally, but we're always going to be headquartered in Liverpool."