The founder and CEO of recipe kit brand Gousto, Timo Boldt, is to stand down after close to 15 years.
An internal memo to staff at the company revealed Boldt would be handing over the CEO role, to take the role of board director.
An executive search firm has been appointed to find a replacement – considering both external and internal candidates – with the appointment expected to be completed in the first half of next year.
“We have an exceptional team, a culture and purpose I love, and an outstanding customer proposition,” Boldt said. “Gousto no longer depends on its founder and is in a strong position for the future, and that makes me incredibly proud.”
Boldt conceived of the recipe box brand while working “100-hour weeks in finance” and realising that “the optimal solution required a regular delivery service” would have all ingredients provided and already measured out, with easy-to-follow recipe cards. With encouragement from his godmother, Boldt quit his job aged 27 to launch Gousto in 2012.
“In her opinion, even if it didn’t work out, I would have at least learned how to cook and could always get a job afterwards,” Boldt said of that time.
“Suddenly, my salary was £0 and my then girlfriend – now wife – and I were moving into student accommodation almost a decade after most people our age had moved out of it,” he recalled.
“I believed wholeheartedly in what we were doing, and could only dream of where we’d be today,” Boldt added.
Gousto has since grown to deliver more than 80 million meals a year and generates more than £340m in annual revenue.
Latest financial reports show adjusted EBITDA has improved from a loss of £8m in 2022 to a record profit of £45m in 2025, and 2026 is expected to deliver a fourth consecutive year of “significant profitability alongside a strong balance sheet”.
Earlier this year, it was named specialist online retailer of the year in The Grocer Gold Awards.
In recent years, the brand has set out to “compete directly with the supermarkets for the mainstream dinner market” and takeaways “head-on”.
Following huge growth in its conveniently and quickly prepared recipe ranges, in August it launched a range of ready meals called Heat & Eat.
“We are innovating at pace to meet more of the needs of customers as we push further into the mainstream dinner market,” Boldt said at the time.
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