In 2017 I founded Frive (originally Lions Prep) with a mission to make healthy eating effortless. What began as a scrappy operation from my kitchen table, printing labels at a house party and hand-delivering meals, has evolved into one of the UK’s fastest-growing direct-to-consumer (DTC) food brands.
But growth isn’t linear. Over the past 18 months, we’ve rebuilt the business from the ground up, rebuilding and expanding our factory, restructuring our team, and reimagining the product, all while keeping one thing clear: the customer always comes first.
Now, in 2025, Frive delivers over 170,000 meals per week to more than 23,000 subscribers. We’re pacing at £50 million ARR and tracking confidently toward £60 million by year-end, maintaining a strong 5.5x LTV:CAC ratio. But this moment isn’t about numbers alone. It’s about the clarity, discipline and innovation that got us here.
The strategic reset that sparked growth
Like many food businesses, recent years have been tough. Inflationary pressures, intensifying competition, and a maturing DTC landscape forced us to confront bloated systems, rising costs, and a product experience that no longer delivered the effortless simplicity we were known for.
So, we hit reset.
We designed a strategy to transition Frive from a £40 million revenue company in January 2025 into a truly scalable superpower.
Rooted in first principles, this plan centred on customer outcomes, operational leverage, and retention-led growth, brought to life through a series of high-impact projects:
- Extended shelf life & pricing optimisations, enabling our one-box-per-week model, reducing operational overhead, unlocking new customer behaviours, and allowing us to open up additional delivery days.
- Stronger customer feedback loops, giving us the real-time insights needed to continually refine our proposition, solve issues before they escalate, and drive meaningful improvements to retention.
- A rebuilt data warehouse into Google, transforming how we operate. We’re now significantly more agile, retention-focused, and efficient across the entire funnel, from acquisition to reactivation.
- New management systems, bringing structure, alignment, and operational discipline to every function. What began as a scrappy start-up has now evolved into a 350+ person organisation, operating with clarity, pace, and cross-functional precision.
We also evolved our team structure around speed, clarity and ownership. Less duplication, more autonomy. We brought in senior talent across leadership, engineering, procurement, content and CX, removing unnecessary layers and empowering smart, high-ownership operators to drive meaningful impact.
From DTC to omnichannel: What’s next for Frive
Frive has always been product-led, customer-obsessed and operationally grounded. But 2025 marks the start of a new phase, one focused on scaling with integrity.
We’ve built a more sophisticated content and acquisition engine, combining paid media with organic social, thought leadership, and deeper founder storytelling. Alongside this, we’re doubling down on low-cost, high-impact channels like referrals, CRM, and creator partnerships, allowing us to acquire customers more efficiently than ever.
Our co-branded product strategy is gaining traction too. Take our new EXALT protein smoothie range, ready-to-drink, nutritionist-approved, and exclusive to Frive. It’s one example of how we’re shifting from a pure subscription model to a platform for healthy living.
Meanwhile, B2B is growing fast, as we supply Frive meals to corporate offices, wellness hubs, and performance venues. And we’re actively exploring retail, testing formats that allow new audiences to experience Frive outside the subscription environment.
Scaling through innovation and automation
To future-proof growth, we’re investing in the infrastructure that will power the next decade. We’ve begun scoping a state-of-the-art production facility designed to consolidate our operations, expand capacity, and support smarter fulfilment at scale.
A major focus for us is robotic automation, particularly in picking, packing, and last-mile preparation. We see this as a vital lever to improve consistency, lower costs, and create better roles for our team.
In an industry where margins are tight, automation is no longer a luxury, it’s an accelerator. Behind the scenes, we’re modernising core systems, exploring ways to further optimise our in-house supply chain, and continuously improving unit economics, all while staying nimble, customer-first, and creatively scrappy at the core.
Five minutes with George Taylor
Tell us a bit about you
I’m George Taylor, Founder & CEO of Frive. I started the company with a clear mission: to help people eat better without friction. Over 8.5 years, I’ve scaled it from a one-man operation into a more than £50 million revenue brand, still lean, still founder-led, and still committed to solving meaningful problems in the food industry.
How long have you been a member of the Business Leaders’ Forum?
Since early 2025. It’s been a brilliant space to share openly, learn practically, and find peers on similar journeys.
Tell us about your business
Frive is a high-growth DTC brand delivering chef-prepared, ready-to-eat meals designed around health goals. Everything is 100% natural, high in protein, and approved by nutritionists. We champion British and organic produce, deliver 170,000+ meals weekly to 23,000+ subscribers, and package everything sustainably. We’re not here to follow trends, we’re here to reshape eating habits, one box at a time.
What’s your expert topic?
Scaling DTC businesses through retention-first growth, operational focus, and lean team structures. I’m particularly passionate about building high-performance culture with fewer people, sharper roles, and clear ownership.
What’s something you want to learn more about?
Robotic automation in fulfilment. From pick and pack robotics to autonomous replenishment systems, I’m deeply interested in how we can increase throughput, reduce human error, and reinvest saved time into better customer experiences.
What is one thing you love about the F&B industry and one thing you’d like to change?
Love: It’s full of passion. The people in food genuinely care about the product, the process, and the impact on consumers.
Change: I’d like to see more truth in sustainability and health claims. We need to move beyond marketing fluff and be clear about what we’re really delivering.
