Growth Studio is delighted to announce Holland & Barrett has partnered with Breakout Wellness UK, becoming the accelerator programme’s founding retail partner.
As the UK’s largest health and wellness retailer, Holland & Barrett will bring its health, wellness and retail expertise to help the programme identify, unlock and champion the success of ten high potential founders.
Holland & Barrett join a powerful consortium of global partners and UK specialists, ready to discover and lend their support to exciting, emerging new wellness brands. Breakout Wellness UK business experts include HSBC Innovation Banking, TikTok Shop, Bird & Bird LLP, Somerce, Finishing Line, Taylored Consultancy and some of the UK’s biggest consumer focused VC’s.
Breakout Wellness UK was launched in Spring 2026, designed to help the UK’s most promising, high growth wellness founders scale faster, become retail-ready and build globally successful brands.
The programme will include businesses spanning gut health, functional nutrition, hydration, energy and recovery, longevity, sleep, stress management and women’s health.
Applicants from all over the UK are currently being reviewed, ready to showcase their products at the Breakout Wellness UK breakfast launch on 22 September and subsequently commence their intensive eight-week programme.
Whilst London accounted for roughly half of applicants (54%), nearly half were from outside the capital — a sign of the depth of wellness entrepreneurship across the UK.
Guy Farmer, chief commercial officer at Holland & Barrett, said: “Health and wellness is moving fast, and Holland & Barrett has always been at the forefront of innovation..
Partnering with Breakout Wellness is a natural next step, bringing together the creativity and innovation of emerging founders with our scale, health and retail expertise, and trusted colleague advice model to help promising brands develop and grow.
Ultimately, it’s about bringing great new health and wellness solutions to more customers and delivering on our mission to help people live better for longer.”
Paul Finch, co-founder of Growth Studio and chief architect of Breakout Wellness UK, says: “We are delighted to welcome Holland & Barrett as our first retail partner to Breakout Wellness UK. As the UK’s leading, largest and most respected wellness retailer, we couldn’t have chosen a better founding partner.
Many wellness founders innovate incredible products that scale rapidly through social commerce. However they often lack the retail knowledge they need, such as how and what to present to buyers, understanding retail operations and systems, and crucially, how to maintain listing growth and longevity.
Having the Holland & Barrett team help select and coach our cohort, whilst providing guidance to our startup ecosystem is absolutely invaluable. We cannot wait to start working together”
As a first of its kind, Breakout Wellness UK has secured the backing of leading wellness business leaders and entrepreneur Ambassadors including Hamish Grierson, co-founder and CEO at Thriva, Alana McFarlane Kempner, Founder and CEO at The Gut Stuff, Frances Lucraft, founder of Grace and Green, Henry Goldsmith, co-founder of SULT, Frida Redknapp, founder of Frood and Arjun Sofat, co-founder and CEO of FreeSoul, one of UK’s fastest growing business with £42m revenue.
Growth Studio brings more than a decade of experience designing and delivering accelerator programmes internationally. Following the success of its inaugural Breakout Beauty UK programme, which attracted almost 300 applications in 2026, the team expects demand for Breakout Wellness UK to be even stronger.
The programme will culminate in a Grand Finale in November, where each founder will showcase their business and pitch to an audience of leading retailers and investors. Two winners will each receive a TikTok Shop support package worth £150,000 to help accelerate their growth.
