Youth Sport Nutrition secures five-figure funding
The British company now has the cash to expand product range and increase production capacity at the factory in Newcastle
Youth Sport Nutrition, a specialist business set up by two former Newcastle United coaches, is aiming for a healthy increase in its turnover after securing a £50,000 investment from the North East Small Loan Fund, supported by the European Regional Development Fund.
Youth Sport Nutrition spent two years developing Pro-Teen, a product known to be the world’s first fortified recovery shake specifically developed for young athletes with selective diets, before its 2017 launch.
The five-figure investment is being used to increase the company’s production capacity and product range. Youth Sport Nutrition also aims to roll out a full digital marketing strategy to support the business’s scale-up plans.
Business growth
Former Newcastle United strength and conditioning coaches Lou Matera and Ben Jefferson founded Youth Sport Nutrition. The company has gone on to sell well over 100,000 units and to build a number of successful partnerships with several regional sporting clubs and academic institutions.
“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,” said Matera.
Mike Guellard, investment executive at NEL Fund Managers, commented: “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.”
Nutritional values
“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,” said co-founder Matera.
Matera explained the products the company has developed provide all the vitamins and nutrients that young athletes need to keep themselves healthy. “We’ve been growing steadily over the last three years as a result of their increasing popularity, with demand often outstripping our production capacity,” he said.
Pro-Teen contains a specific blend of nutrients, including protein, fats, carbohydrates and 16 essential micronutrients, and has been designed as a recovery drink or meal replacement for young athletes to enjoy after intense exercise when good quality whole foods aren’t immediately available.
It currently comes in vanilla, strawberry and milk chocolate flavours, but plans are already in place to add banana and unflavoured vegan products to the list, as well as to produce the company’s first nutritional bars.
Headquartered in North Tyneside, in North East England, Youth Sport Nutrition client base includes the City of Sunderland and Durham City swimming clubs, Sunderland, Newcastle and Gateshead Colleges, and Newcastle and Northumbria Universities.
The company said talks are ongoing with a number of other professional sports clubs, sports academies and educational institutions on how Youth Sports Nutrition might be able to support their young athletes’ progress.
