For UK manufacturers and trade-only brands

You are sitting on formulations. Which of them would sell direct?

Book a free Formula Value Session and we run three of your existing lines through live Amazon sales data: what shoppers are already buying, what they pay for it, and who you would be up against. You get a straight verdict on each line. Build, or pass.

Thirty minutes on screen. You never share a recipe.

Selling on Amazon since 2010
Eight figures in Amazon sales
Built and run an Amazon agency
Two business exits of our own
The problem

You did the hard part. Someone else owns the customer.

Your products are tested, costed and compliant. Sell only through another business and they own the customer, the reviews and the sales history. You are paid per fill, or per case.

01

Contract fillers

A customer moves supply elsewhere and leaves you holding formulations you own outright and nobody is selling. Or a library of stock formulas that has never carried a brand at all.

02

Family brands that sell to trade

You sell through vets, saddlers, salons, garden centres or wholesalers. Customers ask for you by name. Online, a reseller owns your listing, prices it badly and keeps the margin.

03

Tried it, and the selling stalled

It rarely stalls in the making. It stalls in listings, advertising, reviews, stock planning and returns. You are a maker, not a marketer, and there is no shame in that.

One pallet sold direct can earn what ten or twenty pallets earn at trade.And unlike a trade account, a brand has a sale value of its own.
You have watched this happen

Two versions of the same story

One turns up in the trade press and on LinkedIn: a brand sells for a fortune and the factory that made it reads about the deal like everybody else. The other is on your phone, somebody half your age selling a product you could make before lunch at the price you charge for a pallet. Same gap in both. They own the customer, you own the kit.

Sports nutrition

PhD Nutrition

Protein powders and bars. Outsourced manufacturing from the very start, by the buyer's own account.

Sold to
Science in Sport, 2018
Price
£32,000,000
The filler's share
£0

Worse than nothing. The buyer then spent £700,000 moving the filling into its own plant. Whoever had been filling it lost the work too.

Science in Sport plc, regulatory announcement, 14 November 2018
Personal care

Wild

Refillable natural deodorant. Wild's own site says it partnered with two factories. It owns neither of them.

Sold to
Unilever, 2025
Price
reported at about £230m
The factories' share
their unit price

Terms were never disclosed, so treat the figure as reported. What is certain is that neither factory is named anywhere, and both were paid to fill.

Unilever press release, 1 April 2025, and Wild's own site
Baby toiletries

Childs Farm

Bath and skincare for children, contract manufactured in the UK from the beginning.

Sold to
PZ Cussons, 2022
Price
£36,800,000
For
about 92% of the business

A brand built on somebody else's production line, sold for a figure that line will never see on an invoice.

PZ Cussons plc acquisition announcement, 21 March 2022
Grooming, United States

Dollar Shave Club

The razors were made by Dorco, who were selling the same razor on Amazon at the same time, for less.

Sold to
Unilever, 2016
Price
reported at about $1bn
Dorco's share
nothing

Same product, same factory, two prices. One of them had a brand attached, and that was the one worth a billion dollars.

Money, 20 July 2016, and TechCrunch, 19 July 2016
Pet food

Lily's Kitchen

Made across five outside facilities in the UK and Europe. Lily's owned none of them.

Sold to
Nestlé Purina, 2020
Price
never disclosed
The factories' share
they kept the work

The one that ends differently. Purina kept the outsourced model and those factories still make the food. That was not luck, it was a term in the sale agreement.

The Grocer, April 2020, and Nestlé UK press release, 1 April 2020

Scroll for more. Every figure above links to the original announcement or report.

The part nobody explains

A formula is not a customer

You can make it. That was never the problem. The question is who buys it, and the honest answer is that most of the demand is already there and nobody is collecting it.

01

The demand already exists

We ran one filler's range through live Amazon data. Six lines were already selling £10,600 a month between them, on listings nobody managed, with no advertising at all. That is not a forecast. That is shoppers searching and buying whatever turned up.

02

Collecting it is a full-time job

Listings written around the words people actually type. Advertising aimed at whoever is taking those sales today. Reviews built slowly and properly. Stock planned so the listing never goes dark, because an empty listing loses its ranking and you pay to win it back. That job is ours.

03

Then we get you off Amazon

Amazon proves the demand and pays for itself first. Once the lines work we add your own store and an email list, so one platform does not own the business and the brand is worth more at the end. The US follows the UK, never runs alongside it.

How it works

Four steps, and you can stop after any of them

You bring the formulation and the filling line. We bring the selling.

01

Formula Value Session

Thirty minutes on screen. We put three of your lines through live Amazon sales data and give you a verdict on each. You never share a recipe.

Free
02

Proof of value, £500

One week. A written business case on the winning line: three forecasts, profit per unit at your own cost, trademark clearance, a compliance scan and opening quantities. Yours to keep whatever you decide next.

£500 plus VAT, one week
03

Partner with an operator

£3,000 a month from month one. We build the brand and run it day to day. You own it, and you keep every penny of the manufacturing margin along the way.

Launch in weeks four to six from stock
04

Build it on the line you already run

No new plant, no new department, no new hires. Your line, your formulation, simply running more of what it already makes.

Then built to sell, years two to three

Already had your session? Pay for your study, £600 including VAT. We confirm the start date by email the same day.

What we found last time

A filler with a shelf of formulas somebody else had walked away from

A UK contract filler had developed and made almost a whole household range for a customer. The customer moved supply elsewhere and left the filler holding twenty-five formulations it owned outright. We ran the range through live Amazon data.

£10,600a month already selling across six of those lines, on somebody else's unmanaged listings, with no advertising at all
£1.50is what a trade buyer pays the factory for the top seller. Shelf price £12.59. The factory's own cost is lower still, and that gap is the whole point
42 reviewson a line doing £3,900 a month. Almost nobody was trying
One quarteris what it takes for a launch like this to turn profitable after advertising, fulfilment and our fee, when stock is ready to produce

Floor and ceiling. The floor is what those lines earned with nobody trying: £10,600 a month. The ceiling is what the category pays when somebody does try, and putting a number on that is what the £500 study is for. Client names are under NDA. Past results from one engagement, not a forecast for yours.

Is it for you?

Built for owner-managed manufacturers

A good fit if

  • You are a UK or Irish manufacturer, filler or trade-only brand, and the owners run the business
  • You own the formulation outright, or you can make one
  • You make liquids, gels, creams, sprays, supplements or feeds, for people, pets or animals
  • You can fill a few hundred units per line from stock inside four weeks, or as many as the launch needs
  • You can make the decision yourself, and you are there to make it

Not a fit if

  • You only fill to your customers' own recipes and have nothing of your own
  • You want an agency to advertise a brand you already sell online
  • A first conversation needs sign-off from a group board
The deal

Plain terms, set out before you decide

All of it confirmed in writing before anything launches. Nothing below is a surprise on month three.

80 / 20

You own the brand. We share the sale.

The trademark, the listings and the selling account are yours, and so is every penny of the manufacturing margin. We take 20% of the proceeds if and when the brand sells.

£3,000 a month

Management fee from month one

Month one is not idle. While you are making the first run we are registering the brand, building the listings and preparing the launch.

5% above £40k

We earn more when it works

Once the brand passes £40,000 gross in a month, 5% of gross revenue is added to the fee. Below that the fee stays flat.

Your name or ours

Two ways to hold the account

By default you register the brand and the account. If you would rather your trade customers never see you selling direct, we register both and the same terms apply.

Roger Percy
Who you will deal with

Roger Percy

“I have sold on Amazon since 2010, run an Amazon agency, and built and sold businesses of my own. I took a personal safety product to market leader in the UK and Europe, and I have worked hands-on with liquids, creams and regulated categories. Your product is the hard bit. The selling is the bit I know.”
Since 2010Selling on Amazon
Eight figuresIn Amazon sales
Two exitsBusinesses built and sold
Market leaderPersonal safety, UK and EU

Based in Northern Ireland. Working with manufacturers across the UK and Ireland.

Questions

What manufacturers ask first

Do you need our formulations?

No. We work from the product type, claims, pack size and your cost price. The recipe stays with you. We do need to know that you own it, or can make your own.

Will this compete with our trade customers?

Not if we choose well. The brand is separate from your trade business, with its own name and its own company. You tell us which categories and accounts to steer clear of, and nothing goes ahead without your say-so. We will not promise a separate brand is invisible to your trade customers, but we can make sure it is never sold under your name.

What does it cost?

The Formula Value Session costs nothing. The Brand Exit Feasibility Study is £500 plus VAT. If we build, the management fee is £3,000 a month from month one, plus 5% of gross revenue in any month above £40,000, and we take 20% of the proceeds when the brand is sold. Your margin on every unit is yours. Advertising is the brand's own cost. We set all of this out in writing before you decide.

What if nothing we make stacks up?

Then we tell you, in plain terms, on the call or in the study. A clear no now is better than a brand built on hope.

Later, and only if you want it

And then, in two or three years, you sell it

This part is years away, so it comes last. But it is where our 20% sits, so you should see the arithmetic. Because you are the factory, your cost of goods is a fraction of what a normal seller pays, and more of every sale drops through to profit.

Illustration

One line, UK only

Year 1£12k a month
Year 2£30k a month
Year 3£50k a month
Your cost of goods
15% of sales
Annual sales
£600,000
Profit at 24%
£144,000
Sold at
3x annual net profit

Sale price£430,000

Illustration

A small range, UK only

Year 1£25k a month
Year 2£60k a month
Year 3£100k a month
Your cost of goods
15% of sales
Annual sales
£1.2m
Profit at 27%
£324,000
Sold at
3.5x annual net profit

Sale price£1,100,000

Illustration

Two ranges, UK and the US

Year 1£50k a month
Year 2£150k a month
Year 3£300k a month
Your cost of goods
15% of sales
Annual sales
£3.6m
Profit at 29%
£1.04m
Sold at
4x to 4.5x annual net profit

Sale price£4.2m to £4.7m

Worked examples, not forecasts, and not a promise of sales or of a sale. Shelf price at six to seven times your own cost of goods, the standard guidance for a consumer product, so cost of goods is 15% of sales. Amazon fees 35% above £12, advertising 12%, our fee and running costs 9% to 14% by scale. Your study gives you your own number on your own costs.

The one thing we protect for you

When Science in Sport bought PhD Nutrition for £32m, it spent £700,000 moving the filling into its own plant. The filler lost the brand and the work. When Nestlé Purina bought Lily's Kitchen, the outside factories kept making it, because the sale agreement said so.

The difference is who is negotiating

We handle the valuation and the sale, and continuation of your supply agreement sits on the table as a term of it rather than being left to the buyer's goodwill. You sell the brand, take the proceeds, and go on filling.

Where these multiples come from

Not from a listing site. Across completed UK and Ireland deals reported by 106 advisory firms in the second half of 2025, a business with £200,000 of normalised profit sold at 3.3 times profit and one with £10m sold at 8.4 times.

Dealsuite UK and Ireland M&A Monitor, February 2026

Why the trademark goes in first

Of 161 online businesses sold in 2025, those with a registered trademark averaged $269,987. Those without, $122,852. Roughly double, for a piece of paperwork.

Empire Flippers State of the Industry Report, 2026
Start here

Book your Formula Value Session

Thirty minutes on screen with Roger. Bring what you make and how it sells today. Names and categories are enough. You will leave knowing whether there is a line worth putting through the study.

  • Free, with no obligation
  • No recipes, no confidential data
  • A straight verdict on three of your lines: build, or pass

Prefer to talk first? Email hello@formulatobrand.com

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