After going public in 2024, Applied Nutrition (LSE:APN) got an early Christmas present in 2025 when it joined the FTSE 250 on 22 December.

The stock’s up 79% in the past year, which is nice to witness because the London Stock Exchange has been starved of IPOs in recent years. Hopefully, seeing Applied Nutrition doing well will tempt more growth firms to list.

Strong global growth

Founded in 2014, Applied Nutrition has grown from a local supplement shop in Liverpool into a global brand sold in over 85 countries. It formulates, manufactures, and sells a wide range of protein shakes, vitamins, and health products (primarily to distributors and retailers).

In FY25, which ended in July, revenue jumped 24% to £107m, with free cash flow more than doubling to £16.5m. And last month, the firm said trading had been very strong in the first half of FY26, with sales rocketing 57% to £74.5m.

This gave management confidence to predict full-year revenue would be about £140m, which was higher than market expectations. It would represent year-on-year growth of 31%, which means the growth rate is accelerating. EBITDA was also tracking above expectations.

Applied Nutrition put this down to “the success of its channel diversification across UK high street health retailers, grocers and discounters“. These include Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s, and Holland & Barrett, as well as Walmart in the US.

Another interesting partnership announced recently was with Morrisons to exclusively sell 53 high-protein foods nationwide. These include salad bowls, pizzas, high-protein cheeses, and pastas, with a focus on supermarket GLP-1 friendly meals.

So this company is far bigger than a supplier for ‘gym bros’ slurping protein shakes. Indeed, 40% of its customer base is female.

Standards

Applied Nutrition intends to become “the world’s most trusted and innovative sports nutrition, health and wellness brand“. However, trust among serious gym-goers and fitness enthusiasts would soon evaporate if its products lost their reputation for quality.

As the brand continues scaling globally, the risk of taking its eye off the ball could increase. After all, there’s no shortage of competition waiting to fill gaps in the market.

That said, I like founder-CEO Thomas Ryder’s passion. He says, “Supplements and nutrition…are probably boring to 99% of people, but I absolutely love it. I love the ingredients, I love researching what dosages of what ingredients are good and what benefits that you get from them“.

Ryder’s obsession with the products and geekiness about their formulas gives me confidence that Applied Nutrition will not let standards slip.

Smart backing

Another thing I like here is that the brand has a lot of smart backing. JD Sports Fashion has a big stake, as does renowned growth investor Baillie Gifford. Andy Bell, who co-founded investing platform AJ Bell, is the firm’s independent non-executive chair.

Meanwhile, shareholder and brand ambassador Coleen Rooney has broadened the customer base by co-launching an exclusive range of health and wellness products.

Despite the stock surge, analysts remain very bullish, with a 12-month price target that’s 21% above the current level. Six out of seven have rated it a Strong Buy in the past three months.

At 240p, the forward price-to-earnings ratio for FY27 is only around 19. As such, I think this high-quality UK growth stock is well worth considering for an ISA today.