Oddbox finally began to trim losses last year after opting to reset the business by prioritising profitability over growth.
The wonky veg box company has seen sales falter of late, with its latest annual report marking a third successive year of falling revenues.
Revenue fell 7.7% to £27.4m in the year to 30 June 2024, having soared from £3m to more than £32m through the initial years of the pandemic.
But having seen pre-tax losses balloon to £4.8m in FY22 due to inflation and reduced demand, Oddbox opted to change strategy to cut costs and profitability. It stopped marketing to acquire new customers and laid off more than 40 staff from its previously 100-strong team.
The results are now showing: pre-tax losses are down from £3.7m in FY23 to £1.7m, after the company predicted last year it would be “very close to break-even” this year.
“We had built a team that was too big on the basis that things would continue and stabilise at a higher level, and the whole investment market shut down,” founder Emilie Vanpoperinghe told The Times last year. “Suddenly it shifted from ‘growth at all costs’ to [a demand for] ‘profitability’ — and that’s a huge shift for a business.
“We had to cut overheads, we had to re-look at all our supply chain costs, we had to reduce marketing spend and be a lot more efficient on how we acquire customers. And we also focused on what we could do to evolve our proposition to ensure customers are staying longer.”
Vanpoperinghe founded Oddbox in 2016 alongside her partner Deepak Ravindran to rescue odd-shaped and surplus fresh produce from going to waste.
In October it launched ‘pick your own’ boxes, allowing subscribers to swap each item for something they prefer.
The UK produces the largest amount of food waste in Europe, with around 9.5 million tonnes of edible produce wasted each year. About 70% of this is lost in homes, according to the charity Wrap.
Oddbox did not respond to a request for comment.
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