I turned a rugby injury into a £20m business - now I supply the Royal Family's pharmacist & Harrods

A Blackpool man who turned a rugby injury into a £20m business has spoken about how he’s ended up supplying major businesses and the Royal Family’s pharmacist.

Marcus Mollinga founded Zooki at just 18, after a rugby injury inspired him to create a fish oil supplement that tasted good. Now Zooki’s products, which range from collagen and vitamin C to ashwagandha, are sold around the world and stocked in a range of retailers, including Selfridges, Holland and Barrett and even the Royal Family’s pharmacy John Bell & Croyden.

Click here to see what supplements Zooki offer

Marcus explains that John Bell & Croyden reached out to Zooki directly to enquire about their products. "Jack [Morrison, co-founder] and I used to stay at our friend's house in London, going door to door to pharmacies and health food shops getting listings. We got an inbound inquiry from a pharmacy called John Bell & Croyden, which is the Royal Family's pharmacist. She emailed our website saying I'm looking for liposomal vitamin C. At the time, I didn't realize how important this would be. I just thought it was a small independent pharmacy in London.”

Within two weeks, Harrods and Selfridges had also listed Zooki. After securing retail listings, Mollinga says they started to consider how to grow the business further, and decided to focus on exporting.

Marcus said: “Our first big distributor was in South Korea. They were looking for a liposomal vitamin C, which is what we offer, and they love British made products. We also export to the Middle East, Africa, and all around Europe."

“Covid was good for us”

Zooki’s growth was also accelerated by the Covid pandemic. Marcus added: "Covid was good for us because in general, people became healthier. I think it sped up the awareness of the whole nutrition market by about ten years. Before Covid, we were doing £1m turnover. In Covid, we went to £3.5m so we basically tripled."

Now, Marcus is looking at further growth at the Blackpool-based business: "We should do £20-25m turnover this year. We're consistently growing at a good rate, and the online side has grown by 100 per cent since last year. We could grow faster but it means raising more capital and giving away more equity. "We've got a big US retailer who wants to launch at the start of 2026. So I think the main focus in the next five years is making sure the US goes well and scaling the [direct to consumer] model in the UK and Europe."