Merseyside firm says it expects to hit full-year targets despite war disruption

Merseyside’s Applied Nutrition has seen profits soar in the past six months as sales have risen – and says it still expects to meet full-year revenue targets despite the impact of the Iran war.

The sports nutrition business said pre-tax profits for the six months to January 31 stood at £20.9m, up 77.1% on a year earlier. Sales rose 56.5% to £74.5m.

In its half-year statement, the company said it was “cognisant” of disruption to shipping routes and purchasing habits in the Middle East with the Iran war and predicted “some reduction” in sales volumes into the region in the current half-year. But it said it still expects to meet full-year revenue targets of around £140 million.

The group said successes over the year included its first out-licensing agreement with Morrisons, extending the Applied Nutrition brand into “mainstream grocery” with new high‐protein food products. It said it had also seen growth in Europe, Latin America and Asia. Work has also begun on the group’s global distribution facility and head office, as well as phase 3 of a factory extension which “will increase revenue capability to £300m”.

Applied Nutrition floated on the London stock market in 2024. The business has been backed by JD Sports and by TV personality Coleen Rooney, who in February increased her stake in the business.

Thomas Ryder, CEO of Applied Nutrition, said: “Our vision to become the world’s most trusted and innovative sports nutrition, health, and wellness brand remains at the heart of our ambition. This six-month period has further highlighted both the breadth of opportunity before us and our proven ability to realise it. The performance and momentum across the business reflects a consumer environment that continues to shift decisively towards health, fitness and wellbeing.

“We have continued to execute against our strategic priorities in the period, with deeper engagement and expanded shelf space with existing customers, new customer wins and entry into new channels, continued international rollout into new geographies, while further progressing the build-out of our D2C offering.

“Since our IPO, we have seen an uplift in our profile, awareness, trust and credibility – exactly as we had envisaged, but even more impactful than we could have anticipated. This has enabled us to move faster and think bigger, with an innovation engine that is stronger than ever, allowing us to bring new products to market at pace, deepen customer relationships and adapt quickly to evolving consumer needs as we continue to build the business for the long term.”

Popular graphic design platform Canva experienced a short-lived service disruption on March 23, 2026, affecting some users who reported difficulties loading the website and accessing designs. The issue, which surfaced early in the Australian Eastern Daylight Time zone, was quickly addressed and marked as resolved by Canva’s official status page.

Canva’s status dashboard at canvastatus.com detailed the incident starting around 09:44 AEDT (Australian Eastern Daylight Time), equivalent to late evening March 22 in many global time zones including parts of the Americas. Users attempting to open designs encountered a 503 error — a server-side status code indicating the service was temporarily unavailable or overloaded. Canva acknowledged the problem under the title “Some users may encounter issues loading Canva,” stating engineers were investigating.

By 10:09 AEDT, the company updated the incident to “Monitoring” mode after applying a fix, confirming they were watching for stability. The resolution came shortly after, with a final note: “This incident is now resolved. Thank you for your patience and understanding.” No widespread global outage persisted into the afternoon, and third-party monitors like Downdetector showed no current problems as of mid-day March 23, though isolated user reports from the previous evening lingered in social feeds.

The disruption coincided with Sunday evening/Monday morning in various regions, a peak time for students, freelancers, and small businesses finalizing presentations, social media graphics, or marketing materials. Frustration echoed across X (formerly Twitter), where users vented about lost progress on time-sensitive projects. One user lamented spending six hours on a university presentation only for Canva to fail, questioning if autosaves preserved their work. Another in the Netherlands reported a server error, while others tagged @canva directly for updates.

Canva responded promptly to at least one query, directing affected users to the status page for real-time information. The company’s Help Center advises that crashes or freezes can stem from browser issues, intermittent internet, or app versions, but this event appeared server-related rather than client-side.

Canva, headquartered in Sydney and boasting over 200 million monthly active users worldwide as of recent estimates, has grown into a cornerstone tool for non-designers since its 2013 launch. The platform offers drag-and-drop editing, thousands of templates, AI-powered features like Magic Studio, and integrations for printing, social scheduling, and team collaboration. Its free tier drives massive adoption among educators, marketers, and hobbyists, while Pro and Teams subscriptions unlock premium assets and advanced tools.

Outages, though infrequent, draw swift attention given Canva’s scale. Earlier in March 2026, separate incidents included media upload failures on March 12 (resolved in under 30 minutes) and a 503 error wave around the same period, both tied to temporary server hiccups. Historical context shows Canva has faced broader disruptions linked to third-party providers, such as Cloudflare challenges in late 2025 that blocked access alongside sites like X and ChatGPT, or AWS ripple effects in October 2025.

Monitoring services painted a mixed but improving picture. Downforeveryoneorjustme.com noted no active problems as of checks on March 23, with the most recent detected outage on March 22 lasting about one hour. IsItDownRightNow.com confirmed Canva.com was reachable with low response times in automated pings throughout the day. StatusGator reported operational status late March 22, with minimal user-submitted reports in the prior 24 hours.

Downdetector, which aggregates crowd-sourced complaints, indicated a spike in reports around 5:49 PM EDT on March 22 (corresponding to early March 23 in Australia), but declared no current issues by March 23 morning. Some variance existed across tools — one snapshot suggested problems beginning 46 minutes prior — but consensus pointed to resolution.

For users impacted, Canva recommends checking autosave status (designs typically save in real-time on Pro plans) and refreshing browsers or clearing cache. The Help Center offers troubleshooting for crashes, including updating apps or switching networks. In severe cases, support via chat or email remains available.

This brief event underscores reliance on cloud-based creative tools. As remote work and digital content creation surge — Canva reported massive growth in education and small business sectors — even minor downtimes disrupt workflows. Competitors like Adobe Express, Figma (for more advanced design), PicMonkey, or free alternatives (Google Slides, Microsoft Designer) saw anecdotal mentions as backups during the hiccup.

Canva’s transparency via its public status page — a best practice among SaaS providers — helped mitigate panic. The company has invested in infrastructure resilience, including multi-region hosting and AI enhancements rolled out in 2025-2026, to handle peak loads.

As of March 23, 2026, at 06:30 PM KST (late afternoon AEDT), Canva operates normally across web, mobile (iOS/Android), desktop apps, and integrations. No follow-up incidents appeared on the status page or major monitors. Users experiencing lingering issues should verify local connections, as isolated network problems can mimic outages.

The platform’s recovery highlights efficient engineering response times, often under an hour for targeted fixes. For millions relying on Canva daily — from teachers crafting classroom visuals to entrepreneurs building brands — reliability remains key. While this March 23 event was minor compared to past global disruptions, it serves as a reminder of the internet’s interconnected vulnerabilities.

Looking ahead, Canva continues expanding features like enhanced AI editing and enterprise tools. With no indication of recurring problems, the service stands ready for the week’s creative demands.

The government is proposing to construct seven new towns in the UK

The government has announced plans to create a 40,000-home town in the West of England. The Brabazon and West Innovation Arc – a corridor of connected developments in South Gloucestershire – is one of seven areas that have been put forward as part of the proposals by Labour to build seven new towns in Britain.

A national consultation will be held on the plans as the government looks to ramp up housebuilding to a level not seen since the post-war era. Labour has pledged to build some 1.5 million new homes in England by the next election.

The latest announcement comes after a dozen locations were shortlisted in September. The other towns under consideration are Crews Hill and Chase Park, Enfield; Leeds South Bank, West Yorkshire; Manchester Victoria North, Greater Manchester; Thamesmead, Greenwich; and Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire.

On Thursday, housing secretary Steve Reed visited the West Innovation Arc with Helen Godwin, mayor of the West of England. He said: “The West of England is ready to build, and together with the new National Housing Bank, we’re laying the foundations our communities deserve.”

Helen Godwin, Mayor of the West of England, said: “The country’s fastest growing regional economy here in the West of England is the perfect place for a new town: Brabazon and the West Innovation Arc. As we continue to create jobs and growth, we need to build the right homes in the right places – with the services and infrastructure that people need.”

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has promised to break ground on the new towns by 2029 in an attempt to tackle the housing crisis. Last year, he said the aim for the new towns is for at least 40 per cent of homes to be affordable.

Brabazon includes the new Bristol Arena as well as some 6,500 homes, offices, student accommodation and a train station, and is being built on the historic former Filton Airfield by Malaysia-based YTL. The development is expected to create thousands of local jobs.

YTL UK Group chief executive Colin Skellett said: “We’re delighted that Brabazon and the West Innovation Arc has been included in the new towns consultation, it marks a crucial step further towards becoming the most exciting multi-purpose destination in the South West.”

He added: “The potential new town status will unlock even more homes and opportunities for Brabazon, along with the public transport and infrastructure needed to support it.”

Douglas Ure, new chief executive of South West chamber Business West, welcomed the news. He said: “This is exactly the kind of long-term public-private collaboration that drives tangible change, strengthening our key sectors, and improving connectivity between Bristol’s city centre and the region’s highest value employment areas.

“High quality housing, modern transport links and robust cultural infrastructure are essential foundations for prosperity. Our businesses tell us time and time again that these factors are critical to attracting and retaining the talented and skilled workforce that they need. Brabazon and the West Innovation Arc will boost business confidence in our regional economy and help unlock further private sector investment in our region.”