Firm’s palatable performance under the noses of giants

Oct 10 2007 by Alistair Houghton, Liverpool Daily Post

Alistair Houghton meets TONY PARTINGTON, managing director of Vitaflo

TURNING “horrible-tasting” chemicals into tasty lifesaving food may seem to be an unusual recipe for business success.

But Tony Partington, MD of Liverpool medical nutritional firm Vitaflo, says the company’s innovation in making vital nutrition palatable has won it a specialised market niche.

Vitaflo makes nutrient-packed food supplements for people suffering malnutrition after major illness, and for people with disorders that stop them digesting food properly.

With fellow directors Bill MacNab and Maura O’Donnell, Partington has seen the Brunswick Business Park-based business become a leader in its field.

“We see ourselves as an innovation-led company,” he said. “We like innovating and finding new ways of doing things because we know our competitors will find it uncomfortable.

“Our products contain minerals, vitamins, and amino acids which are the building blocks of protein. Some of those are really horrible to taste, but people need large quantities of them. Part of our expertise is making that possible.

“Some of these nutritional interventions won’t work unless patients conform very closely to their diets – their brains can be damaged. The consequences can be very serious.”

Partington started his working life as a brewing biochemist.

“It’s almost true to say at that time there was more known about the nutrition of yeast than the nutrition of human beings. When you’re dealing with a big fermentation of beer and it goes wrong, there’s a lot of money at stake very quickly. It takes a lot of effort to make sure the yeast has everything it needs.”

Partington spent 20 years at Scientific Hospital Supplies, in Liverpool, where he got his first taste of the products that would eventually become his business.

But when SHS was taken over by Dutch giant Numico, he and colleague Maura O’Donnell decided they wanted to go it alone.

Vitaflo had been founded some 10 years before by former SHS director Bill MacNab as a nutritional supplies company, and so Partington and O’Donnell bought into the business. With support from the Merseyside Special Investment Fund, Vitaflo moved to Merseyside and started researching its new products.

Partington says about one in every 10,000 children is born with a condition such as Phenylketonuria (PKU), which means they are unable to properly metabolise an amino acid called phenylalanine that is a component of most protein.

Patients need to stick to a careful diet, including products such as those from Vitaflo, to avoid phenylalanine building up in the blood, causing problems.

“Even their mother’s milk can poison their brains,” he said.

“Nothing can be done by way of a cure, but what we can do is put people on special diets.

“Years ago, these kids ended up in asylums because of the mental effects of these conditions. If put on this diet soon enough they grow up normally.

“The catch is they have to use these supplements for the rest of their lives. They consist of pretty horrible chemicals. We specialise in making these things more palatable and easier to use. That’s why we’ve been so successful in that niche.”

Vitaflo’s other niche is producing supplements for people who suffer malnutrition after serious illness.

“It might be through cancer or a stroke, when you cannot eat,” said Partington. “Typically, people then don’t eat enough and that makes their condition worse. It’s a vicious circle. It costs the NHS about £7bn a year and is a much bigger problem than obesity.

“We noticed a lot of these people weren’t eating enough, but were eating or drinking something, perhaps soup, tea or coffee.

“So we invented this white powder which is very dense in energy and protein, and doesn’t have a taste, but mixes very well with most foods.

“You can smuggle in hundreds of calories. Not only does it give people more nutrition but it seems to stimulate their appetite a bit.”

Partington says Vitaflo’s products are in use in most UK hospitals, and says Vitaflo is now in talks with a possible partner over plans to market them to GPs.

His desire to outsource that sales force ties in with the way the company has developed as an innovator rather than a manufacturer. He says Vitaflo has focused on what it is best at – product development – and recruited experts in other fields so its business can grow.

“We decided from the outset that we didn’t want to go into manufacturing,” he said. “In niche marketing it slows things down too much. We outsource everything we don’t consider to be core business.

“Our core work is product development, marketing and parts of our logistics chain. Everything else is up for grabs. We outsource all our manufacturing and as much of our pure personnel and finance work as we can.

“For example, three or four years ago, the predominant form in our business was powder. Now it’s liquid. If we’d opened a powder factory we would have been reluctant to make that move, but instead we can force the change.”

Vitaflo may be a small firm but, says Partington, small is beautiful. Vitaflo’s tight focus on a specialised field means it can compete well against the food and pharmaceutical giants.

“We know more about the business than they do,” he said. “For them, it’s part of a much bigger business – providing these products is an ancillary service.

“If someone has an idea they tend to come to us first because they know we’ll do something about it.

“The big boys aren’t interested. They could crush us if they had the mind to, but they’re too busy crushing each other.”

More than half of Vitaflo’s products are now exported. Here, its main customer is the NHS.

It employs 30 people in Liverpool and another ten around the world.

The company is now turning over about £12m a year, but Partington says he hopes to double that in three years.

Like so many rock bands before it, Vitaflo is now bidding to crack America – and it has already making good progress.

“It’s a tough market to crack,” said Partington. “In most European countries there’s a state system for buying these products, while in America there are all the different insurance companies to deal with.

“But we’re making progress – it’s become our second-biggest export market, despite the dollar exchange rate.”

Age: 63

Lives: Liverpool waterfront

Family: Married with two daughters

Highest educational qualification: Postgraduate qualification in brewing from Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh

Best advice: Always recruit people who are better than you.

Proudest achievement: Through Vitaflo being able to give 40 people employment – and it’s an enjoyable company to work for.

Ambition: For Vitaflo to become a major international player while still retaining our fun and flexibility. That’s quite an ask.

alistairhoughton