Provitamil

Provitamil Oat Drink is the fastest-growing brand, and the only UK-made product, in the alternative dairy market. So it's probably no surprise that the people behind it have an impeccably British pedigree.

The team is led by Simon Hardy, Founder of Norfolk-based DrinksBrokers Ltd which specialises in marketing and distributing soft drinks. After building a strong reputation in wine and beer sales, Simon moved to cider-maker HP Bulmer to develop sales of its soft drinks range, including high-profile brands such as Orangina, Perrier and Volvic.

'Interesting' soft drinks
After honing his skills, Simon and partner David Diggens (now retired) set-up DrinksBrokers to bring "new, interesting and different soft drink products to the UK market". In fact, their earliest success was sourcing supply supply of sterilised milk for the supermarket giant Asda Walmart, something they still do today.

As consumers began actively looking for alternatives to dairy products, the team started work for Europe's largest supplier of oats-based drinks. "Although they dominated the market, I thought I could make a better product here in the UK", says Simon.

Awesome oats
The team set-out to find a reliable partner that could prepare and pack the highest quality oat drink and, after more than a year of development, Provitamil was born.

Now Provitamil Oat Drink, which has been nominated in World Beverage Innovation Awards 2014 in Best new brand or business (click here for more details), can be found on the shelves of more than 2,200 supermarkets and health food stores across the UK, with new flavours and other alternatives being developed all the time. Clearly Simon's dream of making a 'better' British product has become a reality.