Love Ocean
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Love Ocean (founded by Gabi Jennings, UK) was a refillable natural toiletries brand. Its vegan, eco, reef-friendly bath-time products — sold in signature whale-tail bottles with pouch refills — used sustainably sourced British seaweed and kelp extracts and avoided SLS, petrochemicals, parabens and colourants. Partnering with Plastic Bank, every bottle sold funded the removal of ocean-bound plastic (20 tonnes removed in one year). It sold direct-to-consumer plus retail listings with Ocado, Selfridges, Boots online and Bower Collective, and ran two successful Crowdcube campaigns (the second raising £183K from 172 investors, beating a £150K target).
02 / Love Ocean FAILURE REASONS
Why it failed
Despite the crowdfunding success, Love Ocean Group Ltd (company no. 12120922) entered creditors' voluntary liquidation on July 24, 2024. The brand had planned to launch a baby range in 2022, an adult range in 2023 and a youth range in 2024, but like many small eco-DTC brands of the 2020-24 period it faced the classic squeeze: rising production costs, expensive customer acquisition, and the challenge of scaling a premium-priced sustainable product beyond a loyal niche — even with retail listings and 172 crowdfunded backers.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Liquidation
London Gazette notice records LOVE OCEAN GROUP LTD (12120922, Winchester; ex Little Bean & Friends Ltd) entered creditors' liquidation with Leonard Curtis liquidators appointed 18 Jul 2024 by members and creditors—insolvency ending.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
Love Ocean went into liquidation.
- 02
No financial details of the liquidation were disclosed.