Built by Someone Who Has Lived The Highs And Fought The Lows.
KCM Consulting was not founded in a boardroom or a business school. It was built from the front lines of the food and nutrition industry — through rapid growth, private equity, high-stakes turnarounds, and the kind of decisions that define whether a business survives or thrives.
Founder
Brand Nutrition
Former CD, CEO & OWNER
MuscleFood
Specialisms
E-Commerce, Turnaround, NPD, Capital
Based
United Kingdom
Nick Preston
Founder, KCM Consulting
Nick Preston is one of the UK's most experienced operators in the food and nutrition e-commerce sector. His career spans founding a pioneering sports nutrition product development business, joining MuscleFood at board level, creating a seven-figure revenue channel from scratch, navigating private equity, leading two separate turnaround attempts, and ultimately facing the hardest outcome any operator can face. That complete journey is what makes his counsel genuinely different.
Where It All Started — Brand Nutrition
Nick founded Brand Nutrition, a pioneering sports nutrition business that placed him at the very forefront of product innovation in the industry. At a time when the sports nutrition market was dominated by powders and pills, Nick was among the first to reimagine everyday foods as high-protein, health-focused alternatives — recreating familiar staples in formats consumers had never seen before. Over the course of building Brand Nutrition, Nick created, sourced and developed more than 130 products including the first high protein pizza, waffles, pancakes, beer, sweets, cereal, cheese and so many more establishing himself as one of the most instinctive and commercially sharp product minds in the sector.
Exiting into MuscleFood — Commercial Director
In 2016, Nick exited Brand Nutrition into MuscleFood — one of the UK's leading online meat and nutrition retailers — joining the board as Commercial Director. He brought with him not just his product catalogue but the innovation philosophy and commercial thinking he had developed over years of building Brand Nutrition. Within a year of joining, Nick had identified and built an entirely new channel of monetisation for the MuscleFood platform. By 2017, that channel was delivering a seven-figure bottom line profit for the business — a result that demonstrated his ability to see commercial opportunity where others did not.
Private Equity and the Scale-Up Phase
As MuscleFood grew, Nick was part of the leadership team that navigated the business through its private equity stage — managing the demands of institutional investors, the governance and reporting requirements that come with external capital, and the pressures of accelerated growth. This period sharpened his understanding of how investor expectations, operational complexity, and commercial strategy must align for a business to scale sustainably.
The First Turnaround
Nick stepped away from MuscleFood, only to return when the business faced its first critical inflection point. He led a comprehensive commercial restructuring — stabilising cash flow, renegotiating supplier credit, and rebuilding the operational foundation of the business. This was not a theoretical exercise. It was a real-world, high-stakes turnaround that required decisive leadership, deep commercial acumen, and the ability to maintain stakeholder confidence under pressure. The business was stabilised and Nick stepped back once more.
The Second Return — and the Hardest Lesson
Nick returned to MuscleFood a second time to attempt to rescue the business from closure. Despite his best efforts, the combination of massive operational failures and critical courier breakdowns proved insurmountable. MuscleFood could not be saved. It is a loss Nick carries with him — and one that has become the most powerful part of his professional formation. He knows what it feels like to fight for a business with everything you have and still lose. That experience — the full arc of it — is what separates him from consultants who have only ever seen the upside.
Why the Loss Matters
Most consultants have only ever seen the upside. Nick has seen the full picture — the rapid growth, the private equity pressure, the turnaround fight, and the moment when a business cannot be saved despite every effort. The operational and logistical failures that brought MuscleFood down are precisely the kind of issues KCM Consulting now helps other businesses identify and address before they become terminal. Nick's mission is to ensure that the lessons learned at MuscleFood — at great personal and professional cost — become the early-warning system that protects the businesses he works with today.
The KCM Approach
Real-World Experience
Every recommendation we make is grounded in operational reality. We have faced the same challenges our clients face — and we know what works, what doesn't, and what the cost of getting it wrong looks like.
Decisive Action
In high-stakes situations, speed matters. We move quickly, communicate clearly, and focus on the actions that will have the greatest impact.
Commercial Rigour
We are not strategists who hand over a report and disappear. We work alongside our clients to implement, measure, and refine.
Sector Depth
Food and nutrition is all we do. That focus means we bring a depth of sector knowledge — including the hard lessons — that generalist consultants simply cannot match.
Outsourced Customer Service Management
No business — regardless of size, success, or how busy the operation — can afford to treat customer service as an afterthought. It is the single most direct line between your brand and the people who fund it.
Through its trusted partner network, KCM offers a world-class outsourced customer service solution that gives food and nutrition businesses access to experienced UK and international agents who can respond at pace, scale with demand, and represent your brand with genuine care. Whether you need crisis support, flexible capacity during peak trading periods, or a permanent extension of your team, the model is built to be agile, accountable, and commercially focused.
The Outcome
The result is a customer service function that works as a genuine commercial asset — generating priceless feedback, protecting your reputation, and contributing directly to profitability.
Crisis-Ready
Rapid deployment of trained agents when your business faces a surge in complaints, a product recall, or an operational failure that demands immediate customer communication.
Agile Scaling
Flex your customer service capacity up or down in line with trading periods, product launches, and seasonal demand — without the overhead of permanent headcount.
Retention & Lifetime Value
Exceptional service is not a cost centre — it is a revenue driver. Well-handled interactions improve retention, increase repeat purchase rates, and protect the lifetime value of every customer.
AI-Driven Performance Analytics
Every engagement is backed by AI-powered data analytics that monitor ticket resolution times, agent performance, and customer sentiment — keeping response times tight and quality consistently high.
"We do not offer generic advice or textbook theories. We offer the exact operational, financial, and product development blueprints used to scale massive food businesses."
Nick Preston
Founder, KCM Consulting
Work With Nick Directly
Every KCM engagement is led personally by Nick Preston. There are no junior consultants, no account managers — just direct access to one of the UK's most battle-hardened food and nutrition operators.