Meet Andy Welch, founder of Seriously Low Carb
Seriously Low Carb came about when endurance sport enthusiast Andy Welch realised that whilst his body and health was appreciating the conversion to a low carb/high protein lifestyle - he still craved a full array of everyday essentials (bread, rolls, wraps, pizza ....) that were up until this moment out of reach.
Why is Seriously Low Carb a game changer?
The first time a customer called our loaf a ‘Game Changer’ was a real stop and take a deep breath moment! Since then, the same phrase has been used hundreds, if not thousands of times and whilst we remain in awe regarding the changes we’re making to countless loyalists’ lives, we now have a real handle with regards why we’re succeeding.
Global, independent medical research suggests that the lifestyles we make ‘real’ food for really works, supporting so many different many types of people with an array of distinct. In essence we’re ‘lucky’ enough to be in the right industry at the forefront of consumer discovery.
Our break-through is producing tasty, weight-loss savvy, keto-friendly food. We enable customers to partake in everyday, convenient food whilst embracing a far healthier lifestyle.
At an industry level, there are celebrities, doctors and now the NHS promoting a Low Carb Programme. At a brand level we are endorsed by multiple charities, sports colleges, and we’ve even started to work onsite at our first NHS hospital. 27million UK adults tried a diet of some type last year, and 80% of our consumers say they’d buy our products to lose weight.
We may be kindly referred to as a ‘Game Changer but in reality we’ve only just got started.
Tell me about the moment you decided to make Seriously Low Carb happen?
Finding creative solutions to problems is in my DNA. It’s part and parcel of being dyslexic and it’s what I’ve done throughout my working life. Until 2019 I’d always worked within international, FTSE 250 type companies.
Back in 2019 I decided to take on a top 10 Iron Man with little previous experience. This is when I discovered the benefits of keto for endurance sport. I committed to a keto/low carb lifestyle but quickly missed all the things I couldn’t eat: bread, pizza, rice & pasta. So like any dyslexic newpreneur I invested in my own solution.
If I’m honest my first, single-minded ambition was to escape a stifling corporate lifestyle, which meant that for the first 9 months I was only too happy to collude with a number of knowledgeable, small-batch bakers to perfect light, fluffy bread that was truly scalable. Once the loaf was ready and wrapped, we set up a website and watched excitedly as 2-3 loaves a day started disappearing through our virtual doors.
Then, courtesy of the kind words of a friendly micro-influencer, our orders suddenly jumped to 130 loaves in a single hour. Was this a computer blip, an ordering mishap unwittingly instigated by a small number of sausage-fingered online shoppers…? No, our surge in popularity was all very real as rave Facebook reviews began to affect the scale of daily orders, with 300-500 Seriously Low Carb products quickly becoming the new norm.
Moving forwards a few more weeks and 6,000 loaves had quickly mushroomed into 12,000 loaves and we were well on the way to establishing a 250,000 strong loyalist following.
This was the moment I decided that I could dabble no longer!
What's the hardest problem you’ve had to resolve?
Cashflow is the unavoidable curse of so many ambitious, run-before-they-can-walk businesses. Like so many of our fellow ‘discovery brand’ peers, we were momentarily swept away by the unbridled euphoria of swelling online sales enjoyed at the very height of Lockdown, when growing numbers of inquisitive, stuck-at-home foodies decided they were being nutritionally short-changed, so took to the internet with fresh eyes. Clearly, I wasn’t going to miss out on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and invested heavily (product innovation, staffing, storage & logistics, online… to satisfy rocketing interest in my high-flying food portfolio.
Unfortunately, this was about the same moment that countless start-ups had their fingers burnt by the transitory nature of online growth. Don’t get me wrong, sales remained fairly healthy however pandemic scale sales simply weren’t sustainable. Slowly but surely once rampant online sales were ‘finding their level’ as the world slowly returned to normal and bricks & mortar retailers made their presence felt.
It was clear to me than I’d momentarily bitten off a bit more than I could chew!
What did you do prior to launching Seriously Low Carb?
A range of well-paid, full-throttle yet essentially loveless roles across an array of FTSE 250 clients in sectors as diverse as defence, telecoms and real estate. Adrenalin rushes get you so far, but there comes a time that you want to work on something that makes a real difference to everyday lives whilst simultaneously making you glow with pride.
How did covid affect the plans you had for your business?
As mentioned earlier COVID was both a timely boost and a hinderance.
Without the pandemic and the growth of B2C shopping I’d never have truly appreciated the latent demand for tasty, low carb propositions that fulfilled the pent-up cravings for credible bread, roll and hot cross bun alternatives.
That said, the sheer speed at which my business had to evolve in order to satisfy unprecedented period of meteoric growth took both my team and I to the very edge.
Business highs and lows?
A well-known high street retailer was on the cusp of adopting our range at the outbreak of COVID which would have been fantastic, both in terms of ever greater public exposure and reducing our dependence on B2B. The pandemic encouraged bricks and mortar retailers to temporarily reduce their ranges and bulk up on everyday essentials. This was not a time for inquisitive minds to test ambitious, leading edge food propositions.
Hard to choose one, so instead I’ll highlight 4 pivotal moments in our company’s short life to date
Becoming the fastest growing keto/low carb bread company in the UK
Dominating Amazon’s best seller, fresh bakery slot
Becoming a proud exporting operation (15+ markets and counting)
Aligning with the inspirational sugarwise movement
Plans for the next year?
Making our mainstream and foodservice sector break-through and creating a pasta that puts all its claggy, low-carb peers in the shade.
Can you stand your ground in a highly competitive marketplace?
Without question, we provide the perfect 1st staging post for keto enthusiasts to dip their toes in the enticing waters of a low carb lifestyle. We’re only too aware that our heartland is made up primarily of well-informed foodies looking to lose weight of tackle type 2 diabetes, however as time moves on and our range proliferates, we will make the transition from the foodie fringes to an alternative eating mainstream.
Best advice for aspiring entrepreneurs?
It helps if you are an absolute adrenaline junky and love over coming setbacks as much as you enjoy the more obvious successes. As an entrepreneur you’re here to challenge the ‘status quo’, but by the very definition of status quo, it’s reluctant to change…good luck. I believe in you.
