Northumberland equine bedding company secures Olympic contract

A bespoke equine bedding manufacturer is expanding its global reach with assistance from regional export specialists.

Bedmax started life on a family farm on Holy Island, Northumberland, and is now exporting to 18 countries and recently supplied its horse bedding for use in the Tokyo Olympic stables.

The Northumberland-based operation has drawn on support from international trade experts at the Department for International Trade. The department helped them attend a host of important trade shows in Asia and the Middle East, as well as securing overseas marketing support.

With three production plants making over two million bags of dust-extracted pine shavings per year, Bedmax supplies thousands of customers in the UK and many more across growing export markets, including Japan.

Tim Smalley, MD of Bedmax, said: “We pride ourselves on offering horse owners a bedding of the highest quality, performance and value, and having initially established an excellent reputation in domestic markets, we have grown our global standing significantly since our first forays into overseas markets in Hong Kong and France.

“We have enjoyed a great success in the Japanese market, with the free trade agreement certainly coming at an opportune time for us.

“On average, we currently export a container a week to Japan, which is then distributed to several racing centres and studs. It is a market we are looking to grow and we are working closely our distributors in Japan and the Department for International Trade to achieve this.”

The DIT provided Bedmax with support for international travel, attendance at trade fairs and translation services, and continues to work with Bedmax as it explores other global opportunities, providing funding to help the firm attend the Asian Racing Conference, where the firm secured a £160k contract win.

In the region of 20 per cent of Bedmax’s overall business is made up of exports and it is now targeting significant growth in a number of Middle Eastern markets as well as in Germany, France, and Scandinavian countries.