The Founders' Room
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About us

We started in a garage with £4,000.

Everything we know about building a consumer brand, we learned the expensive way. This is the short version.

In 2018 we started Food Circle from a garage in Sheffield, buying surplus stock from FMCG brands and selling it online to people who wanted good food without the price tag.

It worked. Over the next six years we grew it into one of the UK's largest surplus food ecommerce businesses, serving more than 150,000 customer orders and building a database of around 100,000 customers. We rebranded to Nutricircle along the way.

We did all of it ourselves. The buying, the trading, the website, the email programme, the warehouse, the P&L. We made most of the mistakes available to a growing consumer business, usually with our own money, which is a very effective way to learn.

In April 2024 the business was acquired by Huddled Group PLC, an AIM-listed group. Rather than take the money and disappear, we both stayed.

Paul became Group COO and joined the Board. James ran Nutricircle as Managing Director. Over the next two years we grew the brand's revenue from £1.6m to £5m, trebled annual orders, and learned what life looks like on the other side of an acquisition: board reporting, integration, a fulfilment migration, and running a brand inside a group rather than owning it outright.

We both fully exited in 2026.

  • 2018

    Food Circle

    Founded in a garage in Sheffield with £4,000.

  • 2021

    Forbes 30 Under 30

    Both named in the Retail & Ecommerce list.

  • 2024

    Acquired by Huddled Group PLC

    150,000+ orders and around 100,000 customers at the point of sale.

  • 2024–26

    Inside the PLC

    Paul as Group COO and Board Director, James as Managing Director of Nutricircle. Revenue grown from £1.6m to £5m.

  • 2026

    The Founders' Room

    Fully exited, and back doing the work we know best alongside other founders.

How it actually looked

Not glamorous. This is genuinely how it started, and where it ended up.
Pallets of stock filling a domestic garage, February 2018
The garage, February 2018. Our first proper stock delivery, and nowhere else to put it.
Boxes of stock stacked in a hallway in the early days of Food Circle
When the garage was full, the hallway got used too.
Paul Simpson and James Barthorpe with Food Circle products
Surplus stock from brands people actually wanted.
The Food Circle Supermarket unit in Sheffield
Our first proper unit.
The Food Circle warehouse fully racked and stocked
And a few years later.

We've dealt with the same problems we now help solve: acquisition, margin, stock, cash, fulfilment, people, suppliers, growth and ultimately exit.

Why we started The Founders' Room

There's no shortage of advice. There's a shortage of people who've done it.

When we were building Food Circle, the people we found most useful were never the ones with a framework. They were the operators who had been through the same thing and could tell us what actually happens next.

That's what we wanted to be on the other side of the exit. Not another agency, not another deck. Two people who've built a consumer brand from nothing, sold it, and then run it inside a listed group, sitting alongside founders who are somewhere in the middle of that journey.

We work with a small number of brands at a time, because that's the only way to be genuinely useful rather than spread thin.

The two of us

Co-founders, business partners, and the people you'd actually be working with.
Paul Simpson, co-founder of The Founders' Room

Paul Simpson

Co-founder
Forbes 30 Under 30, 2021

Paul co-founded Food Circle and led it through to the sale to Huddled Group PLC in 2024. He then spent two years inside the PLC, becoming Group COO and a Board Director, with responsibility for trading, ecommerce, supply chain and commercial strategy across the group's brands.

He works at the front of the business: commercial strategy, supplier and brand relationships, business development, marketing and route to market. Usually the one in the room opening a door or making the case.

Quickfire
Age
35
Football team
Liverpool FC
Favourite food
Pizza
Favourite city
Chicago
Tea or coffee
Coffee
James Barthorpe, co-founder of The Founders' Room

James Barthorpe

Co-founder
Forbes 30 Under 30, 2021

James co-founded Food Circle and later ran Nutricircle as Managing Director within Huddled Group PLC, where he was responsible for the day to day performance of the brand through its strongest period of growth.

He lives in the detail: the P&L, daily trading, margin, stock and operations. If something looks good on the surface, James is the one who checks whether the numbers actually agree.

Quickfire
Age
33
Football team
Doncaster Rovers
Favourite food
Curry
Favourite city
New York
Tea or coffee
Tea

We're very different people, which is exactly why it works. One of us is usually out having the conversations, the other is usually checking whether the numbers stack up.

How we think about the work

Three things we hold to, whoever we're working with.

We treat it like our own money

Every pound of budget matters, because we know exactly what it costs to earn one. We won't tell you to spend to make our numbers look good.

We'd rather be useful than right

We'll challenge you honestly, and change our minds when the evidence says so. Nobody needs another adviser defending a position.

We get our hands dirty

We build the model, sit in the meetings and make the calls with you. Handing over a document and leaving isn't the job.

Fancy a conversation?

If any of this sounds like the kind of help you're after, we'd be glad to hear from you. No pitch, no pressure.

Let's talk