Lancashire firm wins Britain's top business award for exports

Kirkham’s Natures Aid has won the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in International Trade - thanks to demand in Mongolia and Vietnam.

The firm which this year celebrates its 40th anniversary, has been recognised for the rapid growth of its export business, which currently stands at around 30 per cent of overall sales.

It has a state-of-the-art 43,000 sq ft manufacturing facility at St Georges Park and has launched 75 new products in the past three years.

It has more than 200 food supplements in natural health and last year launched Wild Earth, the first completely vegan and planet friendly range of vitamin and supplements.

The company’s heartland is its 3,000 independent health retail customers in the UK, but in 2011, due to an increase in demand from overseas customers for quality British-made supplements, the business started to distribute the Natures Aid brand to pharmacy and retail partners around the world.

Just ten years later, the business now has a distribution network in more than 50 countries, focused on international pharmacies and independent retailers throughout Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

Natures Aid’s two biggest export markets are Mongolia and Vietnam, representing 14 per cent of the business’ export sales.

Rapid growth in the Mongolia market has been driven by multiple products in the Natures Aid portfolio, including Mini Drops the company’s natural range of children’s supplements.

The export expansion has also been accelerated as a result of it partnering with STADA from 2016.

Chris Morrey, managing director of Natures Aid, which employs 74, said: “In a decade, we have built a distribution network of more than 50 countries from our Kirkham facility and it’s fantastic that this achievement has been recognised with the Queen’s Award for Enterprise.

"This award will further elevate the strong position we have in our international markets and help us remain on track to achieve 50 per cent of sales from export by 2023 while navigating the challenges of the pandemic.”