It’s a rare moment when someone’s everyday passion for fitness and health turns into a multi-million-dollar business success story, unless you have the drive of Australian entrepreneur, BEN CROWLEY
At just 25 years old, 12 years ago, in a market dominated by overseas imports and expensive local producers of protein supplements, Ben Crowley started the $25 million turnover business, Bioflex Nutrition and Bulk Nutrients.
He was committed to producing protein supplements locally in Australia, with predominantly Australian or New Zealand ingredients, and making them available to the average consumer, like himself, at a competitive price point. The whole idea was conceived whilst a young Crowley was teaching English in Japan for a year, where he couldn’t find anything local and had to buy online from the U.S.A.. There he discovered that the same supplements he used to buy in Australia were so much cheaper buying online from overseas.
Seeing a gap in the Australian market, Crowley researched the industry, revealing Australia and New Zealand’s home grown raw product for protein is some of the best in the world. This quickly crossed out importing protein, and he set about creating an Australian protein supplement brand for Australians. The trick was how to get this into the hands of Australians at the right, affordable price. At a time when ecommerce was just taking hold in Australia, Crowley got a head start with Bulk Nutrients, deciding on this direction due to the big inefficient supply chains inhibiting distribution and maintaining reasonable price points.
Timing was everything,” says Crowley. “We managed to push Bulk Nutrients superior product into the market efficiently and quickly and we backed it heavily with digital marketing, whilst implementing a highly effective customer service system. We were highly planned with a scalable business model.” These days, Bulk Nutrients boasts a 200,000-strong customer base nationally, and a product line of over 150 products, releasing 20 new products a year, designed to support goals of weight loss, muscle gain, endurance, performance and more. The company houses a comprehensive research and development team at their headquarters based in the pristine environment of Tasmania. This team works around the clock enhancing and producing world-class and world-first protein supplements to suit all lifestyle and fitness requirements.
Growth in this area has been made possible by their location, with access to cheaper land and facilities, enabling company owned expansion that would have been unattainable if based in Sydney or Melbourne. There are no leases or loans at Bulk Nutrients. So what are the challenges for the company, when it seems that the fitness and health industry just keeps booming from year-to-year?
“We see a real challenge with international brands infiltrating the Australian market in the online space, attacking price point further and confusing consumers with even more choice,” explains Crowley. “However, we are planned, we are an Australian brand who will continue to foster the tight bond we have with our existing customer base and we will drive our marketing towards educating new consumers into quality Australian-made product.”
Bulk Nutrients marketing also extends beyond the digital space, into the real world, whereby they sponsor over 100 events a year, allowing their staff to interact face to face with their customers all year round.
Ben Crowley is a hands-on businessman with a passion for the industry that is unwavering. With the company looking towards a 15% turnover increase this financial year, he has this Aussie brand in great shape — fit, strong and healthy. When it comes to high quality, effective sports and nutritional supplements; Bulk Nutrients has something for everyone. Moreover, Bulk Nutrients is saying, “Kia Ora” to New Zealand with the exciting announcement that their Aussie made supplements are now available in New Zealand.
And with so much to choose from, Bulk Nutrients is set to become New Zealand’s new one stop supplement shop. Crowley says expanding to New Zealand is a very exciting move for the company and demonstrates growth for the brand who recently took out the Canstar Blue Award for Most Satisfied Customers in the Protein Supplement category.
“Improving our product range to better support our customers is something we focus on every day at Bulk Nutrients,” he says. “So, being able to extend our services to New Zealand is very exciting to us. We have always had a lot of interest from the New Zealand market so we are thrilled to have launched in New Zealand.” ■
Grab a sample today on bulk.li/samples; Shop in Australia at bulknutrients.com.au or in NZ at bulknutrients.co.nz
For the full article grab the September 2019 issue of MAXIM Australia from newsagents and convenience locations. Subscribe here.
