Columnist

University isn’t for everyone

Craig Allen founded Gold Standard Nutrition (GSN) in 2012 after dropping out of university. He was more determined to explore his idea that steam cooked chicken would be healthier for students and gym-goers, than spend more time in the classroom and lecture halls. And to date GSN, based near Selby in North Yorkshire, has provided more than ten million healthy, high protein food and ready meals to gyms, leisure centres, universities, micro markets, garage forecourts, butchers, coffee shops, corporate and business accounts along with professional sports teams. Here, after the Government announced UK students will pay more for university in England next year, Craig explains why lecture halls aren't for everyone.

University wasn’t the right move for me.

It’s a fantastic institution, but it’s not for everyone.

I suppose I could be labelled a university drop-out, which I really don’t have an issue with because it puts me in some very esteemed company – Steven Bartlett, Steve Jobs, Oprah Winfrey and Stephen Spielberg, to name but a few.

I always knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur and shape my own career doing something I was truly passionate about.

I didn’t know at 19 what my true calling was, albeit I knew that food, sport and sports nutrition were three topics that consumed me.

It quickly dawned on me at college that lectures, dissertations and coursework weren’t bringing anything to the party in terms of entrepreneurial clarity.  

The social life was fantastic, but I couldn’t distance myself from the nagging suspicion that eight lectures a week was good value for a mountain of student debt.  

So, I jumped ship, opting instead for hands-on experience, making mistakes and surrounding myself with like-minded talented friends who shared my hunger to succeed.

A chance meeting with a restaurateur enlightened me about the untapped opportunities offered by steamed chicken.

The next step was to fill my dad’s garage with a number of B-grade chest freezers purchased from a post-London Olympics sale, which in tandem with a battered old Tesco van provided the unlikely starting point for a one-man, ready-meal empire trundling up and down the motorways of the North from our base in Selby.

My lucky break was recognising that independent gyms were looking for quality products to help distinguish them from their nationwide gym chain peers; a handy additional income stream in the shape of low sugar/high protein, convenient frozen ready meals.  

Of course there were setbacks, wrong turns and countless sleepless nights.

Today, though, we have a business that straddles opinion-forming gyms, B2C, the NHS, garage forecourts, army barracks, supermarkets and distinguished independent food stores (and, yes, university campuses) with a bundle of healthy meal options.

Every day, I work with inspirational friends, and we challenge ourselves to break new events, sponsorships, collaborations, charity runs, revamped websites, listing pushes, product launches and avant-garde sustainable packaging.

We even have a gym in the middle of our office. 

These are incredible learning experiences that can’t be found in a lecture theatre.

Craig Allen is founder of Gold Standard Nutrition

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