When contract manufacturers laughed at Thomas Robson-Kanu and his father, it wasn’t a rejection—it was a redirect. The kitchen process behind The Turmeric Co.’s blend, built from fresh turmeric root, whole watermelon rind, and raw pineapple, didn’t fit any existing production line. So Thomas and his father flattened the garages behind their London house and built their own food-safety-certified manufacturing unit. That bet—on product integrity over operational convenience—became the engine for 20,000 life-changing customer testimonials, a direct-to-consumer (DTC) business with exceptional retention, and eventual expansion into nearly 15,000 retail stores across the UK. Thomas shares how an uncompromisable product forced an unconventional path, and why that path turned out to be the competitive moat.
On the injury that started a 20-year obsession with functional nutrition:
As a teenager, I suffered two major ACL reconstructions and two and a half years of rehabilitation. By 17, I was hampered with chronic pain and inflammation in my knee. The physiotherapists and doctors told me I was going to have to live with it for the rest of my life. What they did next was prescribe anti-inflammatories and painkillers—ibuprofen, diclofenac, paracetamol. After two weeks, my body had a complete adverse reaction. I started passing blood in my urine, had severe nausea, and couldn’t sleep.
So I was between a rock and a hard place: inflammation I couldn’t get rid of, and no solution. My father and I began questioning if there was a natural way to reduce pain, inflammation, and swelling. We went on a research binge. The public library, the internet—this was two decades ago, so you didn’t have the luxury of ChatGPT. We looked at various cultures around the world, ancient Asian practices, Ayurvedic medicine, and we identified readily available ingredients that weren’t in a convenient format to consume consistently.
My father started sourcing these ingredients and turning them into this concoction. Eventually he got it into a liquid format. Six weeks after using this blend religiously, I woke up and realized it was the first time in over two and a half years I’d woken up without any pain or restriction in my knee. From that point, I made my first-team debut, my international debut for Wales, and my Premier League debut—all completely pain free. This blend was my secret weapon throughout my entire career.
On why every ingredient exists for a functional purpose—and what they refused to add:
Every ingredient in the blend is there for a functional purpose. No filler. We could easily add apple juice or orange juice and reduce the price by half, but we’d lose key functional ingredients—whole watermelon, whole pineapple, fresh pomegranates—which all have either antioxidant or potential anti-inflammatory properties. There’s research now that talks about watermelon being a potent natural muscle soreness reducer and a fantastic hydrator, and that’s the base of every single one of our shots.
A lot of the active compounds in turmeric need to be in a bioavailable format. You need to combine it with several different peppers and herbs, and you have to have it with a fat soluble. We found all of this out over a relatively short period of time. We started with turmeric powder and capsules, but quickly realized it’s turmeric in a spice format—it’s been denatured, heat treated, processed. It’s not fresh, it’s not raw. It’s dead food. So we migrated to sourcing turmeric root directly. At one point, we must have been the highest turmeric-consuming family in our area, heading to different markets just to source enough of it.
On discovering that most products come from the same factory:
When we decided to bring this homemade recipe to market, we went down the route of finding a third-party manufacturer, which is what pretty much every brand in the consumer goods space does. The fascinating thing I learned was that a lot of the brands and products we see on shelves—ones that identify as a unique brand with a unique product—are actually manufactured in the same place. The only change is a slight variation of the recipe and a different label. That blew my mind. I felt like if I was having one brand, it was really specific to that brand and that message. The reality is, it’s a world of me-too products.
On flattening garages to build a food-safety-certified production unit:
We spoke to the leading beverage manufacturers in the UK and Europe and said, This is our process: fresh raw ingredients, a unique extraction process—it needs to be extracted multiple times. They basically just laughed at us and said this isn’t scalable, it’s not possible, and they wouldn’t touch it.
So we very quickly learned that to bring this product to market, we would have to become a functional beverage manufacturer first and foremost before launching the brand. We had to figure out what machinery would replicate that kitchen process—that took about a year. Once we figured that out, the question was where to manufacture. We eventually decided to flatten some garages to the rear of my dad’s house in London, created a mini bespoke manufacturing unit, got it food-safety certified and by 2018, we were ready to bring this blend to market.
I tell entrepreneurs who reach out to me: Don’t become your own manufacturer, because you will have to build two businesses at the same time. As much as you increase your sales, you’ll have to increase your manufacturing capability. That is a real challenge. But the whole genesis of The Turmeric Co. was purpose driven, and we persevered because we felt a real passion in the impact we could have if our range was available to all.
On launching DTC and educating consumers beyond the label:
It’s a small 60-milliliter shot. You don’t have a massive amount of packaging real estate to communicate the message of the product or the brand. So we specifically decided to launch direct to consumer (DTC). We wanted to take consumers on the journey they would go on when using our range. We used that first-party data, engaged directly with the consumer, and let that inform the direction we took the brand and the messaging.
The most important thing was capturing the impact our product was having on people’s lives. Within four weeks of selling our first product, we received our first life-changing customer testimonial: a woman with chronic back pain and arthritis who used the range for about three and a half weeks and got her mobility back. To put things in perspective, we’ve now had over 20,000 life-changing customer testimonials across the widest array of health ailments.
On locking customers into 28-day boxes to force habituation:
We locked our product to 28 shots. There’s no point buying one or two—you need to use them consistently over time. Building that habituation, that ritual into your life, is really important. If you’re consistent enough with it, you’ll begin to experience a benefit. So our orders were a 28-shot box, 28 days of product where consumers would commit to using it.
We then applied a review app into our ecommerce store and tech stack, which allowed us to capture reviews. But then we implemented a manual process where we’d track reviews coming in, reach back out to that customer, engage with them, and ask if they’d be willing to do a video piece about their experience. Those video testimonials became assets. We’d request permission to use them within our marketing—incorporated into email funnels and campaigns for existing purchasers or potential customers we’d captured through email. It was a pivotal decision to focus on the experience our range delivers. But it was only possible because we invested the time to ensure product quality and efficacy. If we’d done a product manufactured by one of those mainstream manufacturers, it would have had the apple juice in it, the orange juice—and consumers would say they used it for 28 days and didn’t feel a difference.
On competing for shelf space with a two-inch bottle:
When you go into retail, you are competing against the big boys of food and beverage, because there’s only a finite amount of shelf space. The shelf space we sit in now was owned by a large multinational brand three, four, five years ago. But taking that step into retail, you enter a completely different world. It’s a different language, different processes, different terminology. If you’ve never been in retail, you wouldn’t believe what it’s like.
When you couple that with a two-inch-high bottle, it is absolutely impossible to communicate the difference between our product and another product on the shelf. You literally cannot. So we were fortunate that we’d built strong enough brand recall through DTC. Someone might see the white Turmeric Co. bottle, search for it, and that search takes them on the journey of discovery. But beyond that, you need to drive conversion on shelf—you have to rely on point of sale, on things like barkers and aisle fins. And then after that, it’s about the product. We have a very unique product you can’t replicate, so as soon as we get that trial, we have a high level of loyalty. That’s what’s allowed us to scale into retail.
Be sure to check out Thomas’s full interview on Shopify Masters to hear more about the journey from elite athlete to wellness founder—and the hard-won lessons that shaped The Turmeric Co. into the brand it is today.
