LONDON — Wellness is expanding in new directions, moving from nutritional supplements in gummy, pill and powder form to everyday food found on supermarket shelves.
The Equity Studio is banking on the new frontiers of wellness, leading a multimillion-pound investment into All Things, the U.K.’s fastest-growing dairy brand founded by London chef Thomas Straker and entrepreneur Toby Hopkinson, alongside Access Industries.
All Things launched in 2023 with a brightly packaged butter that went viral thanks partly to Straker’s popular cooking videos. It has rapidly evolved into a brand platform that’s aiming to redefine dairy, a commoditized category that has seen little meaningful innovation for decades.
The momentum has been building.
Earlier this year, All Things launched a cottage cheese range that delivered strong early retail performance and exceeded expectations, according to The Equity Studio, a specialist investment firm that partners with high-growth consumer brands across wellness, beauty and “conscious” living.
“We created All Things to inspire people to elevate their everyday cooking with the highest-quality British ingredients. These are the products we use in our own restaurant kitchens every day, so it is incredibly exciting to bring that same quality to supermarket shelves,” said Straker, whose cooking videos and “All Things Butter” series have surpassed one billion views on TikTok and Instagram.
All Things launched cottage cheese this year, and plans to add more dairy products to its offer soon.
Hopkinson said that, in the past, food was about convenience and price, “but people want more from what they cook with every day. They want flavor, provenance and inspiration. Our job is simple — take ingredients people already love, and make them exciting again.”
Cottage cheese is a prime example. Often perceived as a dowdy dieter’s staple, it has become one of the fastest-growing food categories globally, fueled by social media discovery, the popularity of high-protein diets and recipe experimentation.
More than 50 percent of All Things’ cottage cheese customers are under 45, and the U.K. category overall is growing more than 50 percent year-on-year, according to The Equity Studio.
It argues that renewed interest in traditional dairy products is not a passing trend, but a “demographic re-platforming,” and part of a wider cultural and lifestyle shift among health-conscious Millennials and Gen Z, who view food, nutrition and raw ingredients differently from their parents.
The Equity Studio also believes that a new generation of brands is transforming “everyday groceries into objects of taste, identity and cultural expression.”
Anna Sweeting, founder of The Equity Studio, believes “food is entering the same cultural phase that beauty and fashion went through a decade ago. Consumers are no longer choosing products purely on price or function — they’re choosing brands that signal taste, identity and quality. Thomas and Toby have built a platform perfectly positioned at that intersection of culture and category.”
Sweeting added: “Dairy is a structurally large category that hasn’t evolved with the consumer. Thomas, Toby and the team aren’t creating a niche brand — they’re redefining everyday behavior, turning daily essentials into cultural signals, built through social, community and lifestyle from day one. That’s when real enterprise value is built.”
The Equity Studio founder Anna Sweeting, with All Things co-founders Toby Hopkinson, left, and Thomas Straker.
The investment comes at a pivotal moment for All Things, which sold 250 tons of butter over the past year, and uses 100 percent British dairy.
Retail expansion is underway in the U.K., with products set to reach more than 11,000 U.K. stores, including Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, Morrisons, Booths, Ocado, Co-op, Planet Organic and Zapp, this year.
A U.S. launch is set for the fall. In parallel, Straker, who operates the Straker’s and Acre restaurants in London, plans to open a branch of Straker’s in New York later this year.
All Things also plans to expand beyond butter and cottage cheese and build a “modern dairy platform.” It will use the new round of investment to expand distribution in the U.K., scale operations and grow the international business.
It will also begin investing directly in its supply chain and farm partners, and pursue a vertical integration strategy.
This is not The Equity Studio’s first foray into health-enhancing food and drink.
Last year, the investor took a multimillion-pound stake in the fast-growing British brand Trip, which creates vitamin and plant-powered beverages and supplements. The brand’s gluten-free, vegan drinks, supplements and oils have been formulated to deliver a sense of calm and to support mental and physical well-being.
The Equity Studio’s portfolio also includes Axel Arigato and 111Skin. Part of its strategy is to back brands “at moments where shifts in consumer behavior create category-defining opportunities.”
It wants to partner with companies in the U.K., Europe and the U.S. “that demonstrate stand-out execution and global resonance,” and to provide strategic capital so those companies can continue scaling.
