In 2019, the three co-founders invested $1,000 into the business. Since then, revenues have grown from $250k in 2019 to $1.6m in 2022. In addition, Ironclad works with 150+ chef and influencer partners, has 40,000+ social media followers, and has had over 15,000 customers to date.

Having grown revenue more than 70% p.a. over FY22 and FY23 without sacrificing profitability, Ironclad has found a successful balance between growing quickly and sustainably. This is aided by a solid (~50%) gross margin profile as well as a highly efficient customer acquisition engine - the majority of their retail partnerships to date have come inbound organically.

In April 2022, Ironclad soft launched in Australia with Australian made cast iron products. Within the first four months, there were Australian sales weeks that outperformed New Zealand. In August 2022, they signed Kitchen Warehouse - Australia’s largest kitchenware retailer. After four months in the market, AU D2C daily sales were higher than NZ.

With an average recommended lifespan of two years, millions of chemically treated non-stick pans end up in landfill. While the mountains of waste grow, over one billion people experience iron deficiency worldwide. By educating people about the environmental issues associated with Teflon and the health benefits of cast iron, Ironclad has found a current context for an ancient product.

With backgrounds in Advertising and Design, Ironclad’s team have decades of global experience working with some of the world’s biggest brands. In four years, they have set the foundations for building their own brand as part of their mission to grow local foundations into a global brand.

13% of Australian cookware buyers know who we are. To put that in context, 10% of Australian cookware buyers have heard of Solidteknics—an Australian cookware brand with 10+ years in market. With a 2023/24 focus on our retail presence we will be able to convert more of those shoppers. And there are a lot of them. In the past three years, 11 million Australians1 have purchased premium cookware.

Our business model is designed to manufacture locally in our key markets. As we move into Australia this structure is proving itself. As it turns out, four in five Australian shoppers believe buying Australian Made is important2. To promote our unique advantage, we have a program of work, products and partnerships that will tell our story of manufacturing locally.

On every Price x Quality graph, there are always a handful of companies who play in the lower left quadrant. Low quality. Low price. Our handmade range will never compete with them. Nor do we want them to. But there is an audience looking for a quality cast iron alternative at a lower price point. We are in the process of developing a solution for these customers.

If brands spent more time making things and less time advertising, the world would be a better place. Our knife range was the world’s first application of merino wool used in knife handles—a sustainable and viable alternative to plastic. We considered the release both a new product launch and an insight into who we are as a brand. There is an integrity and efficiency found by operating this way. Ongoing we plan to use every product we make to communicate who we are as a brand. This will reduce our need to use traditional advertising channels.

With an average recommended lifespan of two years, millions of chemically treated nonstick pans end up in landfill. We are the solution. By providing an ever growing audience with an all-natural, non-stick product that lasts for generations we can significantly reduce the number of pans going into landfill.

Over one billion people experience iron deficiency worldwide. By promoting the health benefits of cast iron, we can continue to find a contemporary context for an ancient product. And with the right communication, and a little innovation, we can lead this conversation.

We already have relationships with some of the best New Zealand and Australian chefs. But we don’t just plan to populate the internet with images of them holding up our products and smiling. To truly embed ourselves in culture we have to contribute to it. So we are developing a revenue-share model to co-create products with these world leading chefs.

To date, we have been too young and too small to experience the efficiencies of ordering at scale. As we grow in Australia, we are beginning to see the benefits—with no impact on quality or the integrity of our products. As we increase demand we lower the Cost of Goods, logistics, and shipping fees.

The home of cast iron. We’re currently experimenting with some paid comms to a small US audience. The market is more familiar with the benefits of cast iron so the cost of customer aquisition is less. As an experiment, we reduced our international shipping fees to the US to better compete with US cast iron manufacturers. The results were really promising. If our Australian growth targets are reached, we will be on the ground in the US to distribute locally in 2024.