Happy Birthday,Nicola
A little love letter to the woman behind Unrefined Nutrients, and everything you have built from one milkshake and a lot of heart.
From all of us
Before it was a $3 million brand in tens of thousands of homes, it was a mum at a kitchen bench, trying to get one little person to drink something good for him.
So today we are putting the orders and the emails and the endless to-do list down for a minute, and simply showing you what you made. Every number here is real. Every quote is from a real family you have helped. All of it started with you.
Where it all began
One son. One milkshake.
Your son was constantly unwell and wary of food, and the only thing he would reliably accept was a "milkshake." So you did what you do best. You blended wholefood, immune-supportive ingredients into something he would actually drink, and that drink became Kids Immune Protein.
You told him a story about the little guards in our tummies that fight off illness, and those guards became the artwork on every pouch.
A clinical nutritionist by training, a mum by heart. You didn't set out to build a company. You set out to help your own child, and it turned out a whole country of parents needed exactly the same thing.
You were always building something
The ideas never stop coming
Unrefined Nutrients wasn't the first thing you made, and knowing you, it won't be the last. This is a mind that is always creating.
The granola
Your very first little business. Made by hand, sold with love, and the first taste of building something that was yours.
The acne course
An online program helping people heal their skin from the inside out, turning your nutrition knowledge into something people could follow at home.
Mother Unrefined
The podcast. Honest conversations about motherhood and nourishment, building the trust and the voice that everything since has been built on.
Unrefined Nutrients
The one that became everything. A whole brand, born from your own kitchen, feeding families right across the country.
And the ones still in the notebook
Not every idea has to launch. But the fact that they keep arriving is the whole point.
The story so far
From a quiet idea to a national brand
You started showing up, honestly
A decade of sharing real mum-life on Instagram as @the__unrefined. The funny, the hard, the honest. No pitch, just you. That trust became the foundation everything else was built on.
Years of formulating and refining
Kitchen experiments turned into proper formulations. Clean, science-backed, genuinely bioavailable, made in Brisbane, and obsessed over until it was right.
"And we're live!"
Launch day. After years of work, Unrefined Nutrients opened its doors, and the community you had built for a decade showed up. The first run sold out.
The world met the story
Your origin reel, "Where it all began," reached 38,861 likes. People didn't just buy a product, they believed in the reason behind it.
Word spread, fast
From around $105k in the first full month, orders roughly doubled by September. Families were coming back, and telling their friends.
Sasha arrived
In the middle of the biggest year of your life, you welcomed your third baby, Sasha, your first little girl after two boys, Leo and James. You grew a business and your family at the very same time.
The breakout
The step-change month. Orders jumped to around 4,000 a month and kept climbing. What began as a side project was now a serious business.
5,512 orders in a single month
Store sales reached $548k, more than five times where the year began, with a full family range now sitting alongside the original three guards.
The first full year
Look what you built
In one year, a two-month-old launch became this. The numbers are almost hard to believe, but they are all yours.
Launch to now
Every month, a little bigger
Monthly store sales, and the contribution that flows through after the cost of making, shipping and marketing every order. Up, and to the right.
Store sales are GST-inclusive (Shopify). Contribution is modelled with consistent full-year rates for cost of goods, fulfilment and ad spend, so it shows the shape of the trend rather than the exact monthly cent.
All across the country
Where the orders come from
From Queensland to WA, and a little trickle across the Tasman. Every bubble is a corner of the country that now has your product in the pantry.
- Queensland11,964 orders$1.36M
- New South Wales10,720 orders$1.19M
- Victoria8,592 orders$940k
- Western Australia3,381 orders$391k
- South Australia1,845 orders$211k
- ACT, TAS & NT1,039 orders$124k
- New Zealand & beyond182 orders$25k
The range you created
The little guards, and the family they grew into
Three flavours of Kids Immune Protein, Vanilla Vanguard, Strawberry Fort and Cacao Cavalry, each carrying the tummy guards you dreamed up. Then a whole range for the grown-ups too.
Kids Immune Protein
Vanilla Vanguard, Strawberry Fort and Cacao Cavalry. 9g of collagen protein, wholefood immune support, and one story about guards that started everything.
The family range
Magnesium & Chamomile Hot Chocolate, Mother's Replete Protein, Whole Iron + C and Pure Collagen. Proof the brand can nourish the whole household.
In their words
The families you have won over
Real messages from real inboxes. The ones that make the long days worth it.
"Thanks so much, Nic! You were too speedy!"
"Thank you so, so much. I really appreciate it, big thank you again!"
"We've noticed lovely changes in his gut and immune health."
The quiet superpower
A decade of trust, doing the work of a marketing team
Over a decade and more than 3,000 posts on @the__unrefined, you built an audience that shows up for the person, not the pitch. Reels reaching over 200,000 people. A giveaway with 34,000 entries. It is what made the launch sell out on day one, and it costs the business essentially nothing.
Paid ads can scale it and a warehouse can ship it, but none of it works without the founder at the centre. That is not a channel. That is you.
Happy Birthday,
Nicola
You turned love for one child into nourishment for tens of thousands. You built a business, and grew your family, without ever losing the warmth that started it. That is a rare thing, and today we get to celebrate the person who did it.
Here's to you, to the year ahead, and to every family still to discover what you have made.
With all our love,
everyone lucky enough to build this with you x