When Craig Allen began driving around Manchester 12 years ago selling steam-cooked chicken direct to gyms, he was laying the foundations for a frozen food brand that has resonated with consumers thanks to its focus on healthier eating.
With his interest in wellness and nutrition, and experience working for his dad in the meat trade, when Allen saw steam-cooked chicken being sold to restaurants to save on cooking time, he decided it was a healthy, convenient product that consumers should have access to as well. And so GSN – Gold Standard Nutrition – was born.
The company began with 10 repurposed freezers, which he branded with the GSN logo. Allen drove to independent gyms in an old supermarket truck to persuade them to host his freezers, and then provided regular deliveries of steamed chicken. Buoyed by early success, he expanded into ready meals, focusing on “healthy, tasty, easy” cuisine. GSN believes it was the first company to put food into gyms and to create ready meals in a distinctive takeaway-box format – moving away from the traditional plastic trays.
Today it has 450 accounts around the UK, with freezers in universities, NHS and military properties, butchers, coffee shops and Spar stores. And on top of that, there are online sales of its chicken bites, wraps and ready meals.
Iain Blackburn, a former football teammate of Allen who shared his interest in nutrition, joined the business in its early days and is now operations director. “We’ve always been into exercise and keeping fit,” he says. “It’s where a lot of the product development comes from.”
Allen adds: “We’re developing products that we want to eat ourselves. When it fits into our lifestyle, it fits into other people’s. They want to stay fit, be healthier, they want food to taste good and be convenient. Our aim is to be the leading provider of healthy frozen foods.”
Over the years, they’ve faced multiple challenges, from managing logistics issues after Brexit to a supplier’s factory burning down along with 60 tonnes of GSN chicken. But it was Covid that provided the ultimate challenge and opportunity.
“Wholesale used to represent 60-70% of our business, but during Covid the gyms closed and there was that huge growth in online buying,” says Allen. “It forced us to focus on selling direct to customers online and to look at how to improve that side of the business.”
They created a budget for paid social media and enlisted help from a more experienced friend whose nightclub was closed during the pandemic. They saw a huge return on investment, directly reaching a whole new audience. Part of that success, they say, was down to the confidence instilled in new buyers by the robustness of their online checkout system. Blackburn says: “As a small business, you want to have a trustworthy process that can help reassure new customers. That’s why we have always worked with PayPal.”
While Covid presented business opportunities, it also came with challenges, recalls Allen. “It was a difficult one to manage,” he says. “Our warehouse had to change their operation, so we needed to move to a different facility while trying to meet a surge in orders. People were buying online, but the factory supplying us was at full capacity and therefore we couldn’t fulfil demand. Yet we were restricted from going out to visit new factories. Even so, it was great to see the growth trajectory.”
The online side of the business has since become such a success that it now represents 55% of GSN’s sales. And 80% of those sales are made on mobile, meaning an even greater need for a simple, smooth checkout process.
A year ago, Blackburn decided to move to PayPal’s Complete Payments1 solution, so all payments – whether by cards, Apple Pay2 or Google Pay3 – could be managed on one platform. “PayPal enables us to offer flexible and multiple payment options for consumers to pay with one single integration,” says Blackburn. “Offering diverse payment options helps us accommodate our mobile- first customers.”
The change has saved GSN so much time, says Allen: “About two days a week that we used to spend reconciling payments. It’s easier and quicker than anything we’ve done before.”
Photograph: Daniel Easton
By offering more payment options as part of its partnership with a globally recognised brand, GSN has seen its basket abandonment rate reduce from 33% to 24%. “The integration was really smooth and we had complete support during set-up,” says Blackburn.
“The customer service claims and cases area is really useful for us, too. While we have 99.2% success rate for deliveries, that leaves a 0.8% that can get lost or damaged in transit and so on. On those occasions, PayPal has a fair and unbiased way to interact between yourself and the customer to help reach a resolution. We haven’t had that before. PayPal Dispute Resolution allows us to have a lot more confidence in our delivery process.”
As a business that has grown organically, without external investment, GSN has big plans for the future. It is looking to establish itself as the go-to healthy frozen food solution that people choose for lunch and dinner. There are even plans to expand internationally with the support of the PayPal platform.
Allen says: “The more we can work with established businesses that make our lives easier, the more we can trust they know what they are doing and can look after their side, so we can concentrate on what we do best.”
To find out more about PayPal Complete Payments and how it can support your business’s growth, head to paypal.com
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