Revenue at Irish supplement company Revive Active is set to hit €21 million this year as the company undertakes a big expansion, with new placements across Europe and with “significant growth” projected.
The Galway-based company researches, develops and manufactures health supplements, which are sold in more than 2,000 pharmacies and health food stores across Ireland.
Colm Horton, operations director of Revive Active, with little more room for expanding its retail placements nationally, and began to look abroad in recent years.
The company has been expanding into European markets on the back of a €12.5 million minority investment from the Irish arm of UK-based equity investment fund BGF, which has backing from the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF).
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Revive Active can now be found in 500 Boots stores across the UK alongside 200 Holland & Barrett stores, and more than 350 independent pharmacies and health food retailers.
Its products have also secured listings in the United Arab Emirates, Denmark, Spain, Portugal, Nigeria and the Czech Republic.
The company experienced bumper growth during the Covid-19 pandemic, Mr Horton explained, as the public had become increasingly conscious of its health.
“When you manufacture a range of nutritional supplements that support immune health and provide energy, there is nothing like a pandemic to give your sales a kick in the backside.”
During this time, Mr Horton said, the company has not increased the price “of any of our products in the last 12 years”. While input costs have risen over the years, the company has achieved savings by driving efficiency to keep its prices down – including by bringing all of its manufacturing in-house.
In its most recent set of accounts, for 2023, the company recorded widened profits of more than €2.8 million following a 10 per cent hike in revenue and improved cost efficiency. Nearly 85 per cent of its revenue was domestic.
The company expects its full-year revenue to grow towards €21 million for 2025 but projects it to “grow quite substantially” in the coming financial year.
“We are doing the hard yards right now, but we are starting to see the reorders come in and the popularity grow. We are about to hit that next phase of expansion and get into the growth curve again.”
The company has grown to have a workforce of nearly 100 employees across its Galway-based headquarters and its Mullingar manufacturing facilities, in addition to a growing team of foreign salespeople.
[ Revive Active continues to build on the success of its late founderOpens in new window ]
In 2023 the company’s founder, Daithí O’Connor, died following a battle with cancer. “It was the people in the business that meant so much to him,” Mr Horton said, noting it was the desire to keep the business in line with its founder’s ideals that led the company to seek out B-Corp status.
“B-Corp is a movement about doing business better,” Mr Horton said, with the company putting increased emphasis on optimising the workplace for its staff, reducing its impact on the environment and having a positive social impact.
