Ep. 95: How Do You Build a Challenger Brand? Thomas "Hal" Robson-Kanu of The Turmeric Co Explains DTC Growth and Retail

Welcome to The Payments Shed Podcast, the weekly podcast that dives into the big topics, trends and people shaping the worlds of payments, fintech and business leadership, with your two co-hosts, Grant Evans and Justin Hanna.

Host:

Welcome back to The Payments Shed Podcast.

Today, we are joined by Thomas "Hal" Robson-Kanu, founder of The Turmeric Co. and former Premier League and Wales international footballer.

Thomas, welcome to the show. Thanks for joining us today.

Thomas "Hal" Robson-Kanu:

Thanks for having me.

Host:

We wanted to dive into what's a pretty unique story, going from being an elite athlete to founding your own business.

Can you tell us the origin story of The Turmeric Co., where the idea came from and how you managed the day-to-day of building it while still being a professional footballer?

Thomas "Hal" Robson-Kanu:

Definitely.

The origin story of The Turmeric Co. was really born out of need.

I was told that I would always live in pain and inflammation following two major surgeries from the ages of 15 to 17.

I basically lived in a chronic state of pain after rupturing my anterior cruciate knee ligament.

I couldn't get fit. I was waking up every day with a knee the size of a balloon.

I spoke to the physios and doctors at the club and they said there was nothing I could do. I was going to have to live with it, but here were some painkillers and anti-inflammatories.

I began taking this standard medication, but after two weeks my body had a complete adverse reaction to it.

I had to stop taking the medication, but I was still hampered with chronic pain, inflammation and swelling.

It was at that point that my father and I began asking the question: is there another way to reduce pain, inflammation and swelling naturally?

We essentially went on a research binge.

We began looking at various cultures and practices around the world, and extracts and ingredients potentially used in pharmaceuticals.

We came across raw ingredients that, although they weren't in convenient formats, were accessible.

Things like whole watermelon, the flesh, rind and skin. Pomegranate. Pineapple, but actually the core of the pineapple because that's where the bromelain is contained. Whole ginger roots and subsequently whole turmeric roots.

The information we saw was all about having it in a bioavailable form, so easily absorbable, and also using it consistently over time.

Long story short, my father set about sourcing all of these raw ingredients and turned them into a blend, which I began to consume.

Six weeks later, I was completely pain-free.

That led me to go on and have a career in professional football, making my first-team debut at Reading Football Club.

A year after that, I made my international debut with Wales. My grandmother was Welsh.

A year after that, I made my Premier League debut.

I was able to do all of that pain-free.

Fast-forward a decade and my father had ruined over 50 different blenders. Every utensil in the kitchen was stained yellow.

We began to see this rise in functional shots on the market, but we realised that every single one of these shots contained apple juice, which is a cheap filler and high in sugar.

They contained minimal amounts of functional ingredients, whether that was turmeric root or ginger root.

We decided we needed to bring this homemade blend to market.

We set about a journey which led to us having to build a bespoke manufacturing unit to get started.

The focus was on how we could make this blend available to people from all different walks of life so they could potentially experience the same benefits I had.

We launched The Turmeric Co. direct to consumer in 2018.

Within four weeks of selling our first product, we received our first life-changing customer testimonial.

Since then, it's been quite a whirlwind journey.

We've scaled the business, built the team and built our capacity.

We're now supporting tens of thousands of people daily through natural nutrition, and we're beginning to see a meaningful impact on society.

Host:

Was your dad making this throughout your career?

Were you making it? Was this batch production constantly going on? Was he sending it to your house?

How did that work during your career?

Thomas "Hal" Robson-Kanu:

I couldn't make it, hands down.

It was quite a rigorous process that he went through.

He'd make it at least once a week. Actually, it was probably every three or four days.

He'd make a batch, leave them in my fridge and I'd consume them consistently.

I probably went a maximum of two days over a 10-year period without taking it.

I used it as my secret weapon.

I began realising that I would recover quicker than my teammates during pre-season when there was an increase in load and activity.

We'd go into winter seasons and I'd very rarely get run down or sick.

I realised there were these other benefits to it as opposed to just acute inflammation and pain reduction.

We then began giving it to friends and family.

My auntie had really bad arthritis and struggled holding a pen. She used the range for a number of weeks and was able to write again.

My uncle had chronic back pain. It was a similar story. He was mobile again after using it for eight weeks.

We thought, okay, it's not just elite athletes this blend benefits.

By the time we launched The Turmeric Co. through our bespoke manufacturing unit, which was essentially the shed at the back of my dad's house, we'd rebuilt it and got SALSA certified, which is for small and mid-sized food manufacturers.

We were probably producing around 200 shots a week consistently.

Massive credit to my dad for allowing me to get through the career that I did.

Host:

You were king of the bleep test then?

Thomas "Hal" Robson-Kanu:

King of the bleep test, yes, I was indeed.

I used to win that every season.

Host:

Within the clubs, were nutritionists asking you questions? Did they have any thoughts or concerns?

Thomas "Hal" Robson-Kanu:

When I recovered as a 17-year-old and began to play and train again, I think I played five or six games without going into the physio room.

The physio called me into the room and asked, "Are you okay? What's going on?"

I said, "Yes, I feel good."

I was probably a little bit guarded because I hadn't had much support.

There wasn't a massive amount of support there.

It was basically, you're either experiencing pain or you're taking medication, which ultimately gave me adverse effects.

So I was very much on my own path.

But my teammates and some of the coaches would see me drinking this golden liquid each morning and began asking questions.

I'd hand them out to a few teammates.

Paul McShane at Reading, Stephen Quinn, they were quite intrigued.

They'd have it for a few weeks and say, "What is this? I feel really good."

And I would say, "There's a limited supply. We can only produce so much."

That scale-up and commercialisation became interesting because we knew there was demand there, not just for elite athletes.

We now know that 28 million people live in pain in the UK.

It's silent pain that no one really talks about.

People accept pain. They accept living in pain.

For me personally, and for what we're doing, we don't think that's right.

Host:

When other players were seeing the benefits, was there a light-bulb moment where you thought, this is a homemade thing that's helped me, but there's a business here?

You retired relatively young at 31.

I listened to you on the Ben Foster podcast and you talked about doing this in your spare time.

Footballers can have quite a lot of downtime. You can be finished by midday and have the afternoon.

Was your mind immediately going towards, there's a business here and this is my new baby outside football?

Thomas "Hal" Robson-Kanu:

From 2016 to 2018, before we launched, there was a lot of R&D work.

We were exploring how we could scale manufacturing and how we could bring a brand and product to market.

We focused very much on DTC, where we could build advocacy and testimony around the product.

That was a lot of work, but I could do it outside the training that typically took two to three hours a day.

My early mornings and afternoons were very much focused on building the infrastructure of a business.

When we launched in 2018, it was a whirlwind journey because we were scaling relatively quickly and organically.

We focused on trade events.

I might play a Saturday game, then on Sunday we'd be exhibiting at the ExCeL Arena or a health food show.

We began getting the product into people's hands and they began using it.

For me, the proof is in the pudding.

The difference in our blends, when you look at the market now, is that there's nothing that compares to it.

We've now had over 20,000 life-changing testimonials.

We're trusted by thousands of athletes on a daily basis.

But our passion is helping the mum or gran who's lived in pain, can't shift certain ailments or struggles with chronic fatigue or energy and is looking at natural nutrition to support their overall wellbeing.

Host:

Was there ever a moment when you thought, can I really do this?

Thomas "Hal" Robson-Kanu:

Every day I thought, what am I doing? What is this? Is this the right thing to be doing?

As you said, I finished at 31 as a professional footballer.

Physically, I felt better than I'd ever felt in my career.

I could probably still be playing now. I know I could still be playing at a decent level physically.

But we were going through a transition period in the business.

We were scaling up manufacturing, which required massive time and energy.

I knew I had to focus on it fully.

I decided to finish professional football in 2021 and focus entirely on the business.

It's allowed us to build an infrastructure where we believe we can reach a global audience and customer base and change the way people perceive food and beverage in relation to health.

Host:

You mentioned this is about more than building a product. You're challenging consumer behaviour.

How hard is it to change how people think about health rather than simply selling a product?

Thomas "Hal" Robson-Kanu:

We live in a world where, for whatever reason, when it comes to health and ailments, we tend to look at the treatment of those ailments rather than the root cause.

There is growing awareness around functional medicine.

Functional medicine is about preventative healthcare. How do you begin to prevent ailments as opposed to constantly treating them?

A lot of treatments or solutions available within healthcare are medicine-led.

I think people generally are thinking more holistically about their health and asking, "How can I empower my life through valuing my health?"

The reality is our biggest asset in the world is our health.

Unfortunately, a lot of people don't realise that until it's too late.

We genuinely believe what we're doing is helping create a shift towards putting health first and using food and lifestyle to optimise it.

Host:

It's close to my heart. My wife's a GP and specialises in lifestyle medicine.

That brings me to the bold vision you've spoken about around turmeric and the NHS.

What needs to happen to make that a reality?

Thomas "Hal" Robson-Kanu:

For us, we don't want turmeric to be classified as a medicine.

But we're firm believers that food is medicine and medicine is food.

We want to create awareness and acceptance within healthcare that if you shift away from an ultra-processed food diet, from diets high in sugars, salts, preservatives, emulsifiers and gums, there can be benefits.

We're not ultra health freaks. It's about balance.

But the balance has been tilted too far towards ultra-processed, nutrient-depleted food that's there for convenience and for business profit.

Can you shift that back and create truly functional beverages and foods, make them accessible, make them convenient and democratise access to them?

That's our position.

When it comes to the NHS and healthcare, we firmly believe taking a food-first, functional medicine approach could create significant change in healthcare.

Host:

When we talk about healthcare, it's dominated by pharma and regulation.

How do you try to build credibility in that world?

Thomas "Hal" Robson-Kanu:

For us, it's around the efficacy of our product and the testimony we receive.

There's no point having a super-healthy product or solution if no one actually feels a benefit.

The second part is engagement with healthcare and healthcare professionals.

There are people within healthcare who are genuinely waking up to natural functional medicine and lifestyle medicine, looking at the holistic picture of health instead of treating a specific ailment with one solution at one moment in time.

I've had the privilege of speaking with a number of healthcare professionals, doctors and GPs.

They talk about how, two decades ago, they would get cold calls from pharmaceutical companies selling them drugs and saying, "This is the next best thing."

What we're doing is coming from a place of authenticity, efficacy and evidence from the impact we're seeing with consumers.

We're not doing anything new.

Turmeric and these functional ingredients have been used and have been around for millennia.

We're bringing them back in a convenient format that's accessible to people.

Our drive is to make it even more accessible and accepted.

Host:

Why do you think the system is so reactive from a medicine point of view rather than preventative?

Thomas "Hal" Robson-Kanu:

My personal opinion is that health is an industry, or ill health is an industry.

If people are sick, it creates revenue streams for various organisations.

If everyone woke up every day feeling amazing with zero ailments, no chronic fatigue, no migraines and no inflammation, think about how many industries would be affected.

Host:

It's a much larger question of politics, really.

But when we think about the business and how you're growing it, you've had 314% retail growth, which is pretty impressive.

What moved the needle there?

Thomas "Hal" Robson-Kanu:

In terms of retail, the big thing is always distribution.

You really need to unlock distribution and availability of the range.

Look at Coca-Cola. They have huge penetration in any market.

You can walk out of this building and within 15 or 20 metres, or in the first shop you enter, there'll probably be a Coca-Cola.

Host:

They also own loads of the other brands in the shop that you don't even realise Coca-Cola owns.

Thomas "Hal" Robson-Kanu:

Correct.

It's really about how you begin to unlock distribution.

We're in a category that's still relatively new, functional wellness and functional beverages.

It's in its infancy even though it's growing rapidly, with lots of players entering the space and plenty of marketing and noise.

The growth of the category and the growth of us as a business will be driven by continuing to increase distribution.

Availability creates access to the range and helps create consumer education.

But to do that, you first have to educate the customer or retailer.

You have to ensure they understand your mission and the uniqueness of the proposition you're bringing to market.

That was a lot of the work we did as we scaled our manufacturing between 2021 and 2023.

We were then in a position to really begin to scale and grow.

We focused heavily on where we wanted to increase distribution.

That was the fundamental focus.

Once you've done that, the next step is how you incrementally drive performance.

There's no point having a product or brand sitting on a shelf that doesn't sell through.

You're up against the biggest brands and businesses in the world.

There's a handful of massive corporations that own many of them.

You're constantly in a David-versus-Goliath battle.

We have to think outside the box.

How do we create visibility? How do we create awareness?

We don't have the budgets of the biggest players, but we're fighting for the same consumer attention and education.

Host:

You mentioned £2.6 million in sales and four million shots. Is that monthly or annually?

Thomas "Hal" Robson-Kanu:

We're producing quite a lot, but we're not quite at that monthly yet.

We're producing hundreds of thousands a week.

Host:

How important is the brand wrapped around this?

You've obviously got great packaging, the healthcare alignment and focus, but there are invariably going to be copycats.

There's a certain red coffee shop that's everywhere with a ginger shot on the shelf.

I've listened to you talk about juices sitting in factories for years.

Now when I pick up a ginger shot, I'm wondering how old it actually is.

How do you deal with people seeing what you've built and trying to copy it?

Thomas "Hal" Robson-Kanu:

It's a good question.

That apple juice shot isn't six months old. It can be 24 months old.

When you look at the juice category and where it's come from, there's been an "apple juicification" of the whole industry.

Go into any store and look at the base ingredient, whether it's a shot, juice or smoothie. It's often apple juice.

That apple juice has typically been pasteurised, which is heat-treated.

When you heat-treat natural fresh juice, you're depleting a significant amount of nutritional value, but it becomes shelf-stable.

It can last one year, two years, sometimes even three years.

That's beneficial from a business perspective because you've got a shelf-stable, long-life product.

For us, the uniqueness is in the fact that we've invested so much in our manufacturing capability and process.

Our blends are extremely unique in the market.

Every ingredient that goes into every one of our shots is there for a purpose, not for profit.

Host:

You see products saying use within one week or two weeks once they're open.

You don't really get that with some cartons of juice. You could leave them there for ages.

That's what you're talking about?

Thomas "Hal" Robson-Kanu:

Yes.

We're in a battle against the legacy infrastructure and incumbent players in the space.

But we know the impact we're having on people's lives, consumers and society.

We could easily go the other way and replicate everything they're doing.

We could create a shelf-stable product range that's incredibly cheap to make but sold at the same price point.

But our intention has always been the impact our products have on the consumers who use them.

We've never compromised on quality.

A big part is education.

We need to build that education and awareness.

That's the challenge we have to overcome to continue cutting through, increasing our distribution and increasing performance in terms of sales off the shelf.

Host:

Is that how you're winning with retailers?

You're coming up against incumbents. How do you convince retailers to take a chance on you?

Thomas "Hal" Robson-Kanu:

You have to come from a position of real strength in terms of uniqueness of product and purpose.

That's really what we have.

Without that, we wouldn't get the airtime we've had.

The next step is translating that to the consumer and educating them.

It's quite fascinating because we get hit with a significant amount of regulation.

For example, if a customer testimonial talks about an ailment which they say our range has supported, we're not allowed to talk about it as a brand.

Host:

Do you even have to remove the testimonial?

Thomas "Hal" Robson-Kanu:

We have to remove it.

We had one just last week.

Host:

So you're restricted in how you can use those claims.

Thomas "Hal" Robson-Kanu:

Correct.

Welcome to our world.

Host:

Tesco, Sainsbury's, Boots, Ocado.

I presume you're now getting a domino effect with some huge retailers.

How important is sampling, and what's the actual process for getting listed as a challenger brand in those massive supermarkets?

Thomas "Hal" Robson-Kanu:

That's a really good question, particularly for start-up and scale-up founders wanting to get into retail.

Having an omnichannel approach is really important.

We fundamentally grew our business direct to consumer.

We had first-party data.

We were able to understand why consumers were buying functional shots and build a significant customer base online.

That's important because a lot of challenger brands go to retail as their first point of call.

There's nothing wrong with that, but it comes with risks.

Moving into retail without having built a brand, community, advocacy or testimony around what you're doing can be a really difficult position.

Anything new on a shelf takes time.

Consumer adoption genuinely takes time.

It takes time for early advocates to turn into the masses.

You need to give yourself enough time to achieve that without becoming a flash in the pan that comes in and then disappears.

For us, there was a real focus on omnichannel and being across multiple channels.

Another good example is that in the first two or three years after launching, we scaled through direct to consumer and Amazon.

They were probably around 50/50 in terms of business revenue and volume.

A customer left a testimonial on our Amazon page after buying the product and using it for six months.

She made a health claim within that testimonial.

We hadn't seen it.

But overnight, our Amazon account disappeared.

Host:

They deleted your whole account?

Thomas "Hal" Robson-Kanu:

It disappeared.

It took us about a week to understand what had happened.

Eventually, we learned it was because there had been a breach around claims, even though it was an authentic, independent customer testimonial.

If we'd built our business solely on Amazon at that stage, we'd have had no business overnight.

That's why the omnichannel approach is really important for brands and scale-up businesses.

Host:

I presume margins are better direct to consumer online as well?

Supermarkets are always going to take their cut.

There's kudos in being in supermarkets, but you look at sectors like dairy where businesses can make very little supplying large retailers.

Going B2C directly rather than B2B2C can be a stronger route initially?

Thomas "Hal" Robson-Kanu:

Initially, definitely.

But the volume, distribution and scale come through retail.

There are tens of thousands of locations in the UK across retail, convenience and out-of-home.

Penetrating that offers a level of scale that's difficult to capture direct to consumer.

I'm not saying you can't do it.

But with direct to consumer, you're typically acquiring customers, so you'll always have customer acquisition costs, whether you're focused on Meta, Google Search or another channel.

You have to factor that in.

That's where the mechanics, unit economics and metrics around retention rates, lifetime value and average order value begin to come into play.

If you can get those right, and it's always a challenge, DTC is a really strong channel to grow.

We're always working, optimising and trying to scale.

Host:

Product versus brand versus distribution. It's about getting the balance right.

Thomas "Hal" Robson-Kanu:

Exactly.

Host:

As the business scales, you've built quite a large team.

How do you make sure you're building the team at the same pace as the business?

Thomas "Hal" Robson-Kanu:

Understanding the objectives of the business is always the first point of call.

You need a clear vision of what you're ultimately trying to create.

We've done a lot of work around that.

What is our vision? What are our core values?

Then you align everyone in the organisation around that.

That's the first step.

Actually moving the needle and driving traction towards that vision is where the work is.

Within that, there's always going to be change and conflict.

But you want healthy conflict.

You want people to challenge and push one another to get the best for the business.

That might mean developing functions or roles.

It might mean a new role coming into the business or an old role going out.

Being open to that change is really important.

It's something we've historically done relatively well and need to keep focusing on.

For me, the biggest challenge is how I get out of the weeds in the day-to-day business.

I think that's every founder's challenge.

You do that by building a team of great people who are like-minded, understand the vision and are willing to make decisions and implement the steps needed to get where the business wants to go.

Host:

How do you maintain trust and quality as you scale?

Your growth has been significant.

You've gone from the first manufacturing space to bigger sites.

How does scaling continue to challenge you?

Thomas "Hal" Robson-Kanu:

Honestly, the majority of my time since launching the business has been focused on operational food manufacturing standards.

We're a BRC AA+ manufacturing standards site, which we're incredibly proud of.

We're approved to manufacture for retailers, which is another standard on top.

Within those standards, food quality is a benchmark.

That doesn't only mean how you handle and process ingredients.

It's also how you source them and ensure supply integrity and certainty.

We've been obsessed with that.

How have we done it?

We've literally been obsessed with it.

We've focused on every raw ingredient that comes into the business and every product that leaves our site.

We've invested a lot of time, energy and resource into the ability to scale with excellence.

Host:

Do you think you've made mistakes along the way?

Thomas "Hal" Robson-Kanu:

Loads.

There are mistakes every day, but they're all opportunities to learn and develop.

The biggest thing is making sure you don't make the same mistake again.

That means understanding the root of the mistake and putting measures in place to prevent it happening again.

Host:

Do you have challenges with ingredients coming from different parts of the world?

If there's a political situation or a major shipping route gets blocked and you're relying on products from certain places, has that created challenges?

Thomas "Hal" Robson-Kanu:

Part of food manufacturing is facilitating a global supply chain.

That opened my eyes when we entered into it early in the business.

We're in the same position as every other food and beverage manufacturer in the UK, Europe or globally.

If there are shortages, we wouldn't be the only business affected.

Nothing is guaranteed, but up until now the global supply chain has been relatively robust.

Our focus and rigour have allowed us to ensure we have, as a minimum, dual supply on raw ingredients and multiple ingredient locations.

But the benchmark is always the quality of the ingredient coming into our site.

Host:

There are some interesting stories about what can now be grown in the UK.

You've got vertical farming, controlled environments and crops being grown year-round.

Have there been any unexpected ingredients where you've thought, actually, we could source this locally?

Thomas "Hal" Robson-Kanu:

Nothing that you wouldn't necessarily expect.

But vertical farming is really interesting.

There's a lot of investment going into that, whether for salads, fruits or vegetables.

It's definitely one for the future to see whether we can grow raw organic turmeric root to the quality we use within the UK.

Host:

I saw teenagers growing unusual mushrooms in a garage in Yorkshire that they now supply to Michelin-starred restaurants because they've created a microclimate.

So it's happening already.

Thomas "Hal" Robson-Kanu:

It's happening.

Host:

You've gone through quite a big identity shift over the last 10 years, from athlete to businessman.

What's been the hardest part of that transition?

Thomas "Hal" Robson-Kanu:

Playing in the Premier League as a professional footballer, there's a lot of pressure.

You have to learn to live with that pressure.

You don't just live with it, you have to thrive within it.

If you were constantly feeling the pressure while trying to perform on a weekend, you'd never be able to perform.

I've probably been in high-pressure environments more than many people working outside sports or football.

I've tried to use that to my advantage.

I've learned to lean into challenges and difficulty and use them to create opportunities.

The transition from footballer into businessperson and leader of a business has been relatively natural for me personally, but only because I've obsessed about the business as much as I obsessed about being a professional footballer.

I feel that where we are as a business is almost the scholarship stage.

We've gone from schoolboy into scholarship, and now we're looking to get the professional contract, get into the Championship and then into the Premier League.

It's a journey.

Understanding that you're on a journey is the first step in dealing with the challenges that will come with it.

A lot of players have an identity tied to football.

But football doesn't last forever.

It also moves incredibly quickly.

You can't pin your life entirely to being a footballer because when you retire, it's gone.

What's next?

Host:

If you look at sports like professional rugby, there's so much intensity and such big physical impacts.

Players seem to be retiring younger.

You see athletes studying for degrees during their careers as well.

Do you think we're moving towards an era where athletes start planning their second career much earlier?

Thomas "Hal" Robson-Kanu:

Football is a massive privilege.

If you can play professional football, you want to do it, and you want to do it for as long as possible.

The rewards and lifestyle you can have while playing the thing you loved as a kid, and getting paid for it as an adult, is ridiculous.

I wouldn't recommend current footballers fast-track their careers or try to finish early.

But there's definitely a message around being aware that it isn't infinite.

It's finite.

What are you planning around the next step of your journey?

It might still be in football. It might be coaching or management.

But thinking about it is the first step.

The intensity and rigour are incredible.

I look back at some of the situations we had in changing rooms, and the way managers talked to me, teammates or opposition players.

A lot of that wouldn't pass in a normal working environment or from an HR perspective.

There's a lot you deal with behind the scenes which, outside football, you can actually use to your advantage in a positive way.

Host:

What do you think founders get wrong when building brands today?

Thomas "Hal" Robson-Kanu:

A lack of obsession with the actual product.

There's a new founder every other week popping up on social media with a new product.

I'll try the majority of them.

A lot of these products offer very little value or meaningful benefit to people's lives.

The quality can be poor.

They're me-too products manufactured at the same site as the competitor they're going up against.

I'd say there's a lack of obsession with the product and the purpose that product serves for the consumer.

Host:

If you could start again, is there one thing you would do differently?

Thomas "Hal" Robson-Kanu:

I'm genuinely a firm believer that everyone is where they need to be.

If I'd changed any one thing on the journey, regardless of the great things or the bad things, I don't think I'd be in the position I'm in now.

That's really important.

I don't look back and think, was that the right decision?

Of course, you can look back and ask how you can use an experience to inform future decisions.

But every challenge we've had, from machinery breakdowns to people leaving the business, customer challenges, product, markets and regulation, has been an important part of the journey.

Host:

On the investment side, you're partnered with dozens of professional sports clubs now.

Were there any former teammates who came on the journey?

Have you got angels from the professional sports world involved?

Thomas "Hal" Robson-Kanu:

Early on, the business was very much self-funded.

It was myself and my father who footed the bills to get the business off the ground.

I'm really glad we did because it meant we had real skin in the game.

Host:

You kept the autonomy.

Thomas "Hal" Robson-Kanu:

Exactly.

Every invoice that left the business, we felt the impact.

We knew there needed to be a return on that.

As we've scaled, we've tried to maintain that mentality.

We've built a team with a like-minded approach who genuinely care about the business.

If, in 10, 15 or 20 years, we can make our business similar in size or scale to Coca-Cola, we'll be having a massive and meaningful impact on society.

For me, the team and the wider business, that's what really counts.

Host:

Before we wrap up, one of our final parts of the show is the Shelf of Shame.

What's one health or wellness trend you'd happily banish forever?

It sounds like it might be apple juice.

What's your ick?

Thomas "Hal" Robson-Kanu:

Ick?

My daughter uses that word.

Host:

It's for our American audience.

Thomas "Hal" Robson-Kanu:

One thing I would banish?

Having seen behind the scenes of food and beverage, I think the majority of food and beverage companies put profit before purpose.

They strip quality, efficacy and nutrient value out of products.

But I'd genuinely have to go after the apple juicification.

The day we don't see apple juice as the main ingredient throughout juice aisles will be an important day.

Host:

Isn't it one of the higher-sugar fruits anyway?

It's got the sweetness. It's the easy option.

Thomas "Hal" Robson-Kanu:

It's the easy option.

It's the cheap option.

Unfortunately, when you deplete the nutritional value through heat treatment and pasteurisation, which the majority of apple juice goes through, you're effectively drinking sugar and water.

Host:

So just go and have a Coke?

Thomas "Hal" Robson-Kanu:

You might as well put Cokes on the shelf.

Host:

You feel like you're doing something healthier because there's fruit at the beginning of it.

Well, I'll happily banish that because you've scared us off apple juice now.

We'll have to put it on the Shelf of Shame.

Thomas "Hal" Robson-Kanu:

Just have a Coca-Cola and enjoy yourself.

Host:

We've really enjoyed this conversation.

Thanks so much for coming on the show.

Where can people find out more about The Turmeric Co., particularly the healthcare work you're focusing on, and what's next?

Thomas "Hal" Robson-Kanu:

Find us on social, The Turmeric Co.

You can find us online at theturmeric.co.

I'm also active on social media, whether that's Instagram or LinkedIn, as Robson-Kanu.

Just follow the journey.

We'll begin sharing more of the work we're doing in healthcare and around meeting more consumer needs with the ranges we offer.

We'll keep working through the regulation to achieve it.

Host:

Amazing.

Thanks for your time. Much appreciated.

Thomas "Hal" Robson-Kanu:

Thank you so much, guys.