Recipe box firm Gousto to double workforce after first year of profitability
Recipe box firm Gousto announced this morning that it plans to double its workforce as it revealed it had delivered a year of profitability for the first time ever as the pandemic more than doubled sales.
Gousto announced this morning that it achieved record sales of £189m last year as it won market share from supermarkets, which struggled to keep up with demand for home delivery orders – a jump of 129 per cent.
The meal kit company said it had achieved its first full year of profitability since it launched, reporting underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of £18.2m, compared to a loss of £9.1m in the previous year.
Gousto said it will double its employee headcount to 2,000 next year, and will also double capacity by adding two new warehouses -in Essex and Cheshire – to cope with the demand.
Last year the firm had already doubled capacity compared to the year before, by investing in its Lincolnshire warehouse and increasing its members of staff from 500 to 1,000.
Timo Boldt, founder and chief executive of Gousto, said: “2020 was a transformational year, but we’re only scratching the surface of the huge opportunity ahead. 500 million evening meals are eaten each week in the UK and 76 per cent of people cook from scratch.
“Gousto is working to unbundle the evening meal from the traditional grocery supply chain. We use software to upgrade both the supply chain and the customer experience of cooking from scratch, while riding the permanent structural shift from offline to online.
“This is just the beginning and I’m incredibly excited about the journey our amazing team is embarking on, which will see our customers benefit as we fulfil our vision to become the most loved way to eat at home.”