Jennie Haire and Lisa Hughes, Gigi Supplements. Picture: Fergal Phillips
Gigi Supplements, a Dublin-based supplements business, plans to expand substantially in the UK over the next year.
Based in Clontarf, Gigi Supplements was founded by Jennie Haire and Lisa Hughes in 2023. The business has 36 staff and has raised €1.5 million in funding to date.
“We create premium supplements for female hormonal health. Our hero product is our PMS and hormone balance blend. It’s a blend of 15 nutritional ingredients to support all aspects of premenstrual syndrome such as low mood and poor energy,” Haire told the Business Post.
Company DetailsFounded by: Jennie Haire and Lisa Hughes in 2023Staff: 36Funding: €1.5 million
“It’s clinically backed to provide the right formulations in the right dose so the user gets optimal results.”
The business is named after Hughes’ daughter, Georgia, as the founders wanted to focus on creating something for the next generation of women.
Both Haire and Hughes are nutritional therapists and it was their combined experience in this field that led them to start Gigi Supplements.
“We had been working in female hormonal health, with clinics focused on supporting women, and kept seeing women with the same struggles. We knew there were clinically researched nutrients that could support them. Yet when we went to recommend products, we’d need to tell them to use four or five different ones,” Haire said.
“We wondered why no brand had distilled it all into one product. That’s the reason Gigi now exists. It was bolstered by our own experiences. I struggled with period pain while Lisa had her own issues as well.”
The business has enjoyed a superb start and the biggest challenge for Gigi Supplements has been managing its own success.
“When we launched, we didn’t know what to expect but we were blown away. We sold out of stock three times in year one and then twice the following year. That reinforced that women felt their pain points were being addressed,” Haire said.
“Boots reached out to us five months in and asked to stock us. It was on our vision board but not that early. We were on the shelves nine months later. It was really a whirlwind for the first 18 months.”
Gigi Supplements is supported by Enterprise Ireland and Haire said the agency had provided substantial help to the business.
“They forced us to focus on what our export potential was and how we’d achieve that. We’ve attended a lot of their workshops and leveraged some of their supports,” she said.
“We did the going for growth course as well as a retail workshop to understand our readiness in that regard. We’re in the process of getting more strategic support from them as well.”
With a direct-to-consumer presence already in the UK, Haire said the next step is to back that up with an on-the-ground retail presence.
“We’ve developed great relationships with Boots and Holland & Barrett in Ireland. We want to start having those conversations in the UK. We’re building it up digitally to create demand and then support it with retail,” she said.
This Making it Work article was produced in partnership with Enterprise Ireland