UK gluten-free business White Rabbit is ten years old and is showing no signs of slowing down.

In recent months, the company, which markets a range of pizzas, sides and desserts, has invested in its factory, its product recipes and a “refresh” of its brand.

Co-founder and CEO Nick Croft-Simon tells Just Food the investment was designed to improve the quality of its products and says the efforts are already paying dividends, boosting sales and distribution in its domestic market – and with profitability on the horizon.

“All of our work over the last 12 to 18 months was how do we bridge that gap from a value and quality perspective,” he says.

Dean Best (DB): White Rabbit marked a decade in business in 2025. You’ve had a busy few months, with capital investment and a brand refresh. What was the rationale for those projects?

Nick Croft-Simon (NC-S): We realised the two biggest bugbears of consumers in our space are not only the quality compromise but also the price they’re expected to pay for equivalent products. If we really wanted to be a leader in the category – and for our brand to get to the next level – we had to be delivering a value equation that was comparable to the parent category.

We benchmarked other premium brands in the parent category – the non-gluten-free space, so brands like Crosta Mollica – and we basically wanted to be able to make our products as good a quality as theirs at the same price point. To do that, we needed to level-up a lot of our machinery in the bakery. The capital investment at the start of last year, the £750,000 ($1m) was all technology at the bakery. We upgraded our oven, we got a bit more automation on the line, just trying to scale that artisanal process, basically.

DB: In your consumer research before embarking on that investment, what had consumers been saying about the products in the category?

NC-S: I guess the fact that a lot of the time free-from-ers are kind of bundled in together. A lot of gluten-free products are actually also dairy-free. That was the first bit of feedback we got: ‘I’m already having to kind of compromise and brands are asking us to double-compromise.’ There’s no reason a coeliac would not want to eat dairy. There’s no bigger proportion of vegetarians or vegans or dairy free-ers within the gluten-free segment than there is the general population.

The first thing we wanted to do was segregate our ranges better. Rather than provide a one-solution-fixes-all and being gluten-free and dairy-free, we wanted to make sure we had options just for gluten-free. In all of our ranges now, or as many as possible, we’ve got gluten-free with dairy but no meat; gluten-free with dairy and meat; and then also a gluten-free and dairy-free version. You’re getting rid of one challenge from a product development perspective. That already closed the gap to the parent category.

We’re not fully there yet but, with this rebrand, we feel like we’ve closed a significant amount of the gap.

Then the rest is around quality of ingredients and price. Consumers feel like they’re being asked to pay more for lower quality. A coeliac and a gluten-intolerant [consumer] have the same taste buds as anyone else and the same constraints on their budget. All of our work over the last 12 to 18 months was how do we bridge that gap from a value and quality perspective. And the new rebrand, we wanted to reflect those values, so the fact that we champion the gluten-free consumer, they’re not an afterthought; they’re our priority.

It’s been ten years building and designing that bakery just to do gluten-free products. It’s a journey. We’re not fully there yet but, with this rebrand, we feel like we’ve closed a significant amount of the gap and we’re seeing that in the numbers as well, which is great, and in a lot of the feedback we’re getting as well.

DB: Ahead of these two projects, were you starting to see sales growth slow or come under pressure?

NC-S: We’ve never not grown year on year but our growth rate – I guess, the typical journey for a challenger brand like ours is you can get from zero to £3m, £4m, £5m, I’m not going to say easily, because it’s not easy, but you can get there through new distribution. Then to get from £5m to £10m to £15m, new distribution isn’t enough. You need to be growing distribution upon a growing core business and growing rate of sale. We needed to face into that second stage of our growth because we were growing but it was 9%, 10%, 11% year on year, whereas we want to get back into 30-40% year on year.

It all had to come back to doubling down on product quality. We’ve never not grown but it was that growth rate for the second stage of our development going from a start-up to a kind of SME. That growth had to be driven by repeat rate of sale, as much as new business. That’s what led to the relaunch and very happy to say that we’re actually growing 40% year on year now. That is basically off the back of repeat rate increasing by four or five percentage points and rate of sales also increasing.

DB: Has the investment in product quality meant higher input costs?

NC-S: It has to be honest but owning our bakery has meant that we’ve done our best to absorb those costs. We didn’t want to price bottom-up. Yes, gluten-free ingredients are more expensive and, yes, it’s a more artisanal process but we wanted to work backwards from ‘look, this is what consumers are being asked to pay in the parent category. We need to match that, so that we’re delivering for the consumers first.’ That’s the strategy we’ve decided to stick to otherwise our proposition falls apart. If we want to be delivering the same value at the same quality, we can’t be 40% more expensive than the equivalent in the parent category. Yes, input costs went up but we’ve done our best to absorb that within efficiencies in the bakery that we’ve got through increased scale.

DB: Is the number of coeliac and gluten-intolerant consumers flat? If so, are you needing to attract more of ‘lifestyle’ consumers?

NC-S: Gluten-free as a category is growing about 5% year on year and it’s set to continue to grow at that rate for the next few years. As diagnoses get better and medical advancements happen, I think more people will be diagnosed with things like coeliacs and gluten intolerance. That is still growing. We also know one in five households have a gluten-free member in them. The issue is, at the moment, over 60% say whoever shops for the household shops different fixtures for different people in the house. Again, it just comes back to matching the quality and the value. If we can do that as a category, there’s no reason why, if there was one gluten-free member in the household, whoever’s shopping for that household wouldn’t just buy, for example, White Rabbit for the whole house. At the moment, there’s still that gap in price and quality perception.

DB: How do White Rabbit’s sales split between chilled and frozen?

NC-S: Chilled is the biggest part of our business. It’s about 60% chilled at the moment. That was where we started and that’s where we have the most distribution. Our frozen arm is growing, so it will be closer by the end of this year.

DB: You’ve expanded the portfolio recently, with biscotti and gnocchi.

NC-S: Biscotti is really exciting to sell because it’s our foray into ambient. We had the tiramisus launch last year as well, which are the number one contributor to growth in gluten-free desserts, which is great. Desserts are another big one where gluten-free and dairy-free tend to get bundled in together. We really wanted to deliver something that had dairy in it so that we could get there on quality. Lots of NPD but 80% of our revenue is still the bakery products that we make ourselves. Things like the desserts that we can’t do in our bakery are [made by] Italian manufacturers with our recipes.

DB: As the White Rabbit range expands, is it harder to manage the portfolio?

NC-S: I think it goes in cycles. We have a period, like this year, when we’ve had the relaunch and launched some new SKUs. Now we want to go through a period of focusing on those ranges, optimising those and making them as good as possible. Our core growth and our core products always have to remain our heartland. If there’s an opportunity to reach another consumer, a different meal occasion like with the biscotti, we’ll go for it but, on the whole, at the size we are now, as we’re maturing as a business, we want to be focusing as much on recipe development for our existing ranges as we do on new products.

There’s a tendency to get carried away with NPD but there’s no point in filling a leaky bucket. You need to be looking after your heartland and make sure that’s growing first and foremost.

DB: In your most recent financial year, what were your annual net sales?

NC-S: So last year, to the end of Jan ’25, £5.77m.

DB: What are you forecasting for the end of Jan ‘26?

NC-S: £8.1m. We’re really pleased with the way the relaunch has landed. It’s not an easy environment at the moment, so I’m really proud of the relaunch and how it’s doing.

DB: Is the business profitable yet?

NC-S: We had our first profitable quarter in Q1. Q2 this financial year, we’re reinvesting again in a bit of marketing and some product development but then, from Q3 onwards, we’ll be profitable again.

DB: Do you think in this current financial year, you’ll be profitable at a net profit level?

NC-S: We will, yes.

DB: Would that be the first full year?

NC-S: Yes. It’s been a long, old journey. Having the factory is our biggest strength strategically and from a product quality point of view but obviously that’s a big, old overhead that we need to factor in. We’re getting to the scale now where we can break-even with the factory, which is great because we have that strategic strength and hopefully, we can start reinvesting in the brand.

We’re getting to the scale now where we can break-even with the factory, which is great

DB: Does White Rabbit sell outside the UK?

NC-S: We don’t but we definitely want to. It comes down to resources within the business and know-how. I think we’d be looking to invest more in that over the next 12 months. If we can get a foothold in one or two countries in Europe, that would be incredible. Ireland would be an obvious one. From a demographic point of view, they’ve got more coeliacs per capita than the UK does. At the moment, we’re doubling down on our heartland, which is UK grocery.

DB: Do you do any business in foodservice in the UK?

NC-S: We do. We sell our bases to restaurants and pubs that then source and top them themselves. Again, there’s more to do there. It’s a high-single-digit per cent of our revenue. There’s a lot there because not a lot of people are doing it, and even fewer are doing it well. If we can be known as the go-to for a high-quality, gluten-free solution, that takes a headache away because they know it’s been made in a dedicated, free-from site and also delivers on quality. It’s small at the moment but it’s definitely one that we’re looking to grow in the future.

DB: For calendar year ‘26 – your financial year ’27 – what are the main priorities for the business?

NC-S: We’ve had so many launches this year and, fingers crossed, there’ll be more to come in Q4. Optimising those ranges and making sure they get off to a flying start is the number one priority. From there, we want to build up the team again. We’re a small team of about 60. The business has grown 40% year on year this year but the team hasn’t grown by 40%.

Then, marketing. As a brand that has its own manufacturing, 90% of our investment goes into the factory and into the products, which is absolutely how it had to be. To support our growth and to support our brand awareness, we want to start investing a bit more. We typically spend between 1-2% on marketing. A lot of other brands our size will be doing upwards of 10%, 15%, 20%.

In our category, the premium challengers are driving the growth. A lot of that is where the out-of-home spend is shifting into premium retail – where people want to treat themselves but they don’t want to pay £30-40 on having a meal out. They want to replicate that experience at home. I think premiumisation will continue to be the leader of the growth in most categories and it definitely is in ours. Hopefully, that lends itself well to a brand like ours that wants to deliver high-quality solutions.