Newcastle sports nutrition company secures five figure investment for production capacity increase

A sports nutrition business has secured a five figure investment to increase its production.

Youth Sport Nutrition, set up by two former Newcastle United coaches, is aiming for an increase in its turnover after securing the investment from the North East Small Loan Fund supported by the European Regional Development Fund.

It has worked with regional fund management firm NEL Fund Managers to secure the £50k investment, which is being used to increase its production capacity and product range, and to roll out a full digital marketing strategy which will support the business’s scale-up plans.

Lou Matera, co-founder of Youth Sport Nutrition, commented: “Young athletes are at a greater risk of nutritional deficiencies than most people, due to their heavy training loads, busy schedules and rapid periods of growth, and our aim is to raise awareness among parents, coaches and the athletes themselves around correct nutrition.

“When we first came up with the idea for Pro-Teen [sports nutrition drink], our experience with many of them was that proper nutrition was often just an afterthought, especially when their families were spending several hours every day getting their kids to and from regular training sessions.

“The products we developed provide all the vitamins and nutrients that young athletes need to keep themselves healthy and we’ve been growing steadily over the last three years as a result of their increasing popularity, with demand often outstripping our production capacity.

“Most of the marketing work we’ve done up to now has been based on direct contact at events, but our digital marketing plans will enable us to significantly increase the number of potential customers we can target, while ramping up our production capacity will allow us to meet the extra demand we’re expecting to see.

“When we were looking for an investor in the business, we wanted to keep it local and work with a North East organisation that understood where we’d come from and could see where we want to go.

“The NEL team was quick to respond and helped make the investment application process go very smoothly.”

Mike Guellard, investment executive at NEL Fund Managers, added: “The Youth Sport Nutrition team have allied nutritional and sporting knowledge with impressive business insight, and now have the opportunity to realise more of the business’s growth potential.”

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