Mindful Chef has rebounded into turnover growth for the first time since the pandemic, as investments made over the prior three years “really paid off”, according to company chairman Tim Lee.
Turning the tide on post-pandemic subscription losses, the recipe box company achieved growth of 9.8% to pull in revenues of £55.9m in the year to 31 December 2024.
Nestlé-owned Mindful Chef’s sales rebound was backed by a return to profit, as topline growth met a £3.9m reduction in the cost of sales.
Gross margin jumped from 32.9% to 45.8%, and pre-tax profit leapt to £10.9m, up from a loss of £1.7m.
Lee put Mindful Chef’s return to profitable growth down to the company’s continued investment in customer experience and operational efficiencies, including £3m in capex over the past three years.
He said the team was “pleased that investment, and the focus on customers, quality and deliciousness has really paid off”.
“We do a lot of work to maintain a feedback loop from customers, to understand what’s important to them,” Lee said.
Feedback had been central to product development, Lee said, with the company doing “a lot of work” to improve its proteins in 2024.
“Customers asked us for more premium lines of fish, so we’ve put in things like sea bass, barramundi: we’re extending meaningful choice within an edited range,” he added.
Recent trends towards healthy eating have played into Mindful Chef’s existing brand positioning, though partnerships with health app Zoe and dietician Megan Rossi in October 2024 and April 2025 showing the company’s eagerness to capitalise on the trend.
“[Health] was always on our radar. It just strengthens our approach and proposition,” Lee said.
Supporting the focus on product has been significant operational investments that have begun to pay off as the business has matured.
“Within the operations, we’ve put a lot of investment into automation, like robotic palletisers and semi-automated box packing,” Lee said, adding that the company had found a ‘semi-automated’ packing environment, where operatives are supported by high-speed machines, best for maintaining quality at speed.
“It ensures that every box goes out as perfect as we can get it, which is our number one priority, but also allows us to do it with a level of efficiency we consider industry-leading,” he said.
“These things take time. If you put an investment into your packing operation, it generally takes you six to 12 months for that to materialise, so it’s taken time for us to build that efficiency.”
In-house statistics have shown the brand cutting errors over time while improving customer satisfaction.
Mindful Chef now employs 83 staff, having slimmed numbers down from the 100-plus high of 2021, when it had to hire rapidly to support sudden growth.
The team is based in London and a 50,000 sq ft packing operation south of Birmingham, where it contracts Oakland International to provide trained staff and a facility. Mindful Chef provides the machinery, “technical know-how” and intellectual property.
“We plan around our strengths: building a great brand, and looking after customers,” said Lee.
“We’ve become quite good at operations, but we prefer to do it in partnership. It’s a great arrangement.”
Mindful Chef is a registered B Corp, and has donated over 20 million school meals to children living in poverty in Malawi.
Separately, fellow Nestlé subsidiary and meal kit service SimplyCook also registered a return to growth, with revenues up 5.3% to £14.1m in the year to 31 December 2024.
The return to growth was not enough for Simply Cook to turn a profit, however, and the company posted a pre-tax loss of £1.3m. It made £73k in pre-tax profit in 2023.
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