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grüum is a Manchester-born brand shaking up the personal care space. They make simple, effective and affordable skincare, haircare, wellness and home products with sustainability baked in, not bolted on. With a broad range of solid, waterless and plastic-free products, the goal is always to make the sustainable option the easy, affordable and obvious choice.
What started as four people in a co-working space is now a fully vertically integrated D2C business with a team of 65, in-house cosmetic scientists, their own manufacturing facilities and fulfilment operation, and over two million customers.
“The mission has always been straightforward: make it easy for people to make better, more conscious choices — without compromising on quality or paying a premium to do it.”
Four Friends, One Gap in the Market
grüum was born out of a genuine gap in the market. Founders Andy, Simon, Beth and George had worked together at Simon’s previous business, watching the D2C personal care scene explode in the US while the UK market lagged behind. They wanted to bring that same energy to the UK with products that were simple, effective, affordable and thoughtful about their environmental impact.
That bootstrapped, no-safety-net mentality has shaped everything about how they run the business today. It’s also what drove the journey from working with contract manufacturers to full vertical integration: bringing cosmetic science, manufacturing and fulfilment all in-house. grüum now controls every step of the process from formulation to the customer’s doorstep. And it shapes how they think about data, too.
A Good Problem to Have
One of grüum’s most persistent challenges probably sounds enviable: a small team managing a large amount of data. With over two million customers and many millions of transactional data points, making sense of it all in a meaningful, timely way is genuinely hard.
“We were patching things together with custom reports, offline spreadsheets and multiple disconnected platforms. The insight was there in theory, but surfacing it quickly and affordably was a real challenge.”
They’d been actively looking for a data solution for a while, but kept hitting the same wall: tools that were either too expensive, too complex to integrate, or both.
“Sometimes the Best Solutions Find You”
Metorik came to grüum through a recommendation from a trusted business connection, and it was immediately clear it was different. It integrated cleanly with their store, it was affordable, and it was intuitive enough for everyone on the team to use.
“We’ve never looked back. Sometimes the best solutions find you. You just have to be ready to recognise them.”
Data that was once siloed and slow to reach is now live and open to the whole team. Decisions get made faster, with more confidence, and by the right people, rather than waiting on someone to pull a report.
“For a lean team managing the kind of data volumes we have, that accessibility is everything. It’s become the central nervous system of how we understand and run the business.”
Doubling Down on What Works
Three areas of Metorik do the heaviest lifting for the grüum team: source reporting, customer lifetime value tracking, and product analytics.
“We’re running activity across multiple channels and affiliates, and Metorik lets us monitor performance in real time, so we can double down on what’s working and cut what isn’t, quickly.”
The LTV analysis has shifted how grüum thinks about customer acquisition altogether; understanding the long-term value of a customer gives them the confidence to back campaigns that might look loss-leading on day one, but make complete sense over a customer’s lifetime.
From Gut Feel to Grounded Confidence
Ask grüum about Metorik’s impact and they won’t point to a single headline metric. The real change has been in decision-making confidence. Customer acquisition is the clearest example: grüum runs campaigns that aren’t immediately profitable, and in the past that created real internal nervousness.
“Now, because we can clearly see and trust our LTV data, we can invest in those campaigns knowing the return will be there.”
Scaling Without Ceilings
For a business that’s grown as quickly as grüum, tools need to scale with you rather than hold you back, and it’s an area where Metorik has quietly earned its keep.
“As we’ve grown to two million customers, it’s kept pace without us ever needing workarounds or hitting a ceiling. It just works, at whatever volume we throw at it.”
Because Metorik houses data away from grüum’s own site infrastructure, there’s no performance impact and no added risk, no matter the volume.
What’s Next for grüum
There’s plenty on the horizon for grüum — new channels, new territories, and continued investment in their facilities, systems and people. But in true grüum fashion, they’re not getting ahead of themselves. Whatever comes next, it’ll be built on a solid foundation of data.
“As we scale, the ability to make fast, confident, well-informed decisions only becomes more critical — that’s exactly why tools like Metorik aren’t a nice-to-have, they’re central to the plan.”
If your team is drowning in spreadsheets while your customer base keeps growing, take it from grüum — the right data foundation changes how boldly you can move.