Gousto boss shrugs off cost of living concern
THE boss of London-based meal kit subscription business Gousto believes his business can keep growing rapidly despite soaring inflation squeezing customer budgets and putting up his costs.
Timo Boldt, founder and chief executive of Shepherd’s Bush-based Gousto, said he was confident of another year of strong growth after his business posted its ninth year of double-digit expansion.
Revenues at Gousto rose 67% to £315 million last year. The company made an underlying profit before exceptional costs, interest, depreciation and tax of £20 million, up 10% on 2020.
Gousto, founded in 2012, delivers subscription meal kits to people with prices starting at £24.99 for two recipes for two people. It offers 60 different recipes each week — current selections include King Prawn Arrabbiata Farfalle and Chicken Tikka Nann with Indian yoghurt. It delivered 90 million meals last year.
Like all businesses, Boldt said Gousto was seeing “huge inflation” in costs, with prices for things like wheat and beef “skyrocketing”.
He said Gousto had developed software that monitors live commodityprices and helps manage costs by automatically selecting the best recipes to include in boxes, balancing cost with popularity.
“We are in a fortunate position in that we have a high degree of automation,” Boldt said.
Inflation has prompted a fierce price war in the supermarket sector and forced loss-making takeaway business Just Eat to shift its strategy from growth to turning a profit.
Businesses are battling it out to win a slice of family’s food budgets as Brits face what Deutsche Bank said this week was the “one of theworst real term cuts to pay packets since the Second World War.”
Boldt said Gousto “still expects to grow by double digits” in percentage terms this year despite the pressures.
“Obviously there’s a lot of uncertainty but if you zoom out from today to the big stuff, the trends continue to be healthy eating, sustainability,” he said. “We continue to be optimistic.”
He said the firm was still focused on growth and he “wouldn’t even know” if it was profitable on a pre-tax basis.
He added: “We are one of the few cashflow positive unicorns.”