George Taylor hit delete on Lions Prep one grey Monday in February 2024 – and watched 53,000 monthly organic visits appear from nowhere within twelve months. 

Frive, the phoenix brand that rose from the meal prep ashes, now ranks 10th for visibility in a £1.6bn UK meal-delivery market, up from obscurity a year earlier.

That leap matters. 

Search demand for “meal delivery services” is up 22% year-on-year, while the overall meal-prep category has grown just 4% in visibility. In a market where Hello Fresh shed 12% of its search footprint and still tops the chart, challenger brands need a sharper playbook. Frive’s decision to kill its own name, niche and domain offers precisely that.

Click here to see how you & 100+ other UK meal delivery brands fared this year in our latest Salience Meal Delivery Index.

Further reading: Full 2025 Meal Delivery market report analysis. See the top meal delivery brands & our take on their perfomance in one click.

 

Market context – the niche is burning

The Salience Index shows a widening gap between yesterday’s gym-fuel suppliers and today’s mainstream convenience seekers.

Brand Apr 2025 Traffic Score YoY change Rank movement Market variance (+/-)
Frive 53 311 +100% ▲ 103 +96%
Gousto 243 369 +33% – +29%
Prepkitchen 40 639 +53% ▲ 1 +49%
Hello Fresh 442 644 –12% – –16%

Table 1 – Visibility winners and sinners, Meal-delivery sector 2024-25

Gousto’s steady climb shows that broad appeal can scale, while Hello Fresh proves that high authority alone no longer guarantees growth. Frive joins the over-achievers quadrant: high traffic, low authority, powered by social appeal and human-first intent-driven content rather than sheer backlink volume and domain authority.

 

Brand numbers – the boring metrics that pay rent

  • Brand searches: 12,100 a month, up 650% YoY – the fastest-rising brand term in the index.
  • Social followers: 126k on Instagram versus Simmer’s 199k and PrepKitchen’s 95k. Engagement per post beats both on the like-to-follower ratio (internal Sprout audit, June 2025).
  • Trustpilot: 4.6 from 8,095 reviews – highest in the top-20 visibility cohort.
  • PageSpeed: 94/100 desktop, 65/100 mobile – frictionless compared with the category mid-40s. Every extra second costs 7% of conversions.

Seasonality strategy – launch when nobody is looking

Rebranding in February dodged the noisy January “new you” traffic spike and captured a calmer wave of intent: “healthy meals near me” (+15%), “meal prep low-carb high-protein” (+34%) and “meals delivered to house” (+78%). Competitors chasing short-term resolution traffic missed that longer tail.

 

Tactics in action – five moves that rewired growth

  1. Domain migration with zero-loss redirects – every Lions Prep URL 301 ’ed to its Frive twin before the first press release landed. Transform Magazine confirms the change was coordinated with the Among Equals agency.
  2. UX that sells itself – four-step funnel (choose → confirm → pay → enjoy) with real-time pricing and no forced login walls. Creative Boom notes how the new interface “opens the menu to anyone needing speedy nutrition”
  3. Evidence-backed content – site copy leans on 2024 Imperial College findings linking ultra-processed foods to cardiovascular risk and UCL research showing a reduced type-2 diabetes risk when UPFs are replaced with whole foods. While rivals push influencer quotes, Frive cites scientific studies and doctors’ journals, all boosting trust and E-E-A-T ranking factors.
  4. UGC-first social – everyday nurses and parents replace glossy gym-bod shots, raising relatability and algorithmic reach. 

 

Engagement → conversion – turning curiosity into cash

Frive positions support links on every page, not buried in the footer. Trust signals (reviews, guarantees, FCA-style nutrition claims) quickly push users down the funnel. My own 30-second trial build left me one click from checkout – frictionless enough that I nearly ordered lunch mid-audit.

 

Key takeaways

  • Killing a brand can be growth marketing, not self-harm, if redirects and messaging land together.
  • Speed sells: a 94/65 PageSpeed split puts Frive among the five fastest UK meal-delivery sites, stealing conversions while others are still loading.
  • Evidence beats hype: citing peer-reviewed nutrition studies builds E-E-A-T and consumer trust.
  • UGC over studio shots: authentic stories double engagement even with half the followers.
  • Watch the sleeping giants: Prepkitchen’s 53% YoY surge hints it may copy Frive’s playbook next.

Conclusion

If your brand identity limits growth, a controlled demolition may be safer than slow decline. Frive shows that with strategic clarity, ruthless UX and science-backed storytelling, you can rename, reposition and even switch domains – and still outrun Gousto and Google. Same meals, better story, bigger market.


P.S Save yourself 72+ hours of market research by downloading our meal delivery market report here.