£1.5 Million Export Deal For Mackle Petfoods
Northern Ireland-based Mackle Petfoods has signed a deal, estimated to be worth £1.5 million over the next two years, to supply its Naturo range to 200 Albert Heijn stores in the Netherlands. The Naturo range was launched in the UK and Ireland in 2013.
Invest NI’s Trade Advisory Service was able to support the company enabling it to carry out essential market research and identify and set up meetings with key buyers in the Netherlands.
John Mackle and Elaine Hall, Mackle Petfoods, pictured outside an Albert Heijn store in the Netherlands.
John Mackle, managing director of Mackle Petfoods, says: “We quickly realised through intensive market research, storechecks and market visits that there was nothing quite like Naturo on the Dutch supermarket shelves. In a pet loving country like the Netherlands, with 4.5 million cats and dogs, we saw an opportunity for Naturo, especially as the Dutch prefer quality natural products.”
He adds: “We also did our homework before entering the Dutch market and realised that there are some differences between the Netherlands and our domestic market. This helped us to ensure our product offering was exactly what the market wanted and included determining that we needed to launch the product in full colour Dutch language sleeves.”
