Rhian Allen’s The Healthy Mummy acquired for $17 million

Sydney entrepreneur Rhian Allen has been working over the past 18 months to sell the business she founded from her kitchen 12 years ago, and she says the result means the company will now have its own manufacturing capabilities to turbocharge its growth. 

Allen is the founder of The Healthy Mummy, which this week was sold to ASX-listed Halo Food Co in a $17 million deal. 

The Healthy Mummy operates in Australia, the UK and US, offering mums a health and lifestyle program that includes meal and exercise plans, supplements and smoothies, recipes and merchandise. 

The company recorded $21 million in revenue and $4 million in normalised EBITDA in the 2021 financial year. Retail products, including its smoothies and supplements, account for 61% of the company’s revenue, with the rest coming from some 86,000 subscribers to its app. 

The Healthy Mummy has a team of 150 full-time, part-time and casual workers, 53 of which are employed to manage a dedicated social media community that has more than 1.5 million members in Australia alone. 

Halo Food Co sells a range of food and beverage products, including KeyDairy milk powders, Super Cubes ready-to-eat meals, Tonik beverages and Gran’s fudges. 

The sale price is comprised of $10.84 million in cash and $6.17 million in shares, which will go to The Healthy Mummy’s owners, Allen and Whiteoak Pty Ltd. The deal also includes up to $5 million in potential earn-out considerations if key financial targets are met. 

Allen is staying on as CEO, which she tells SmartCompany was a key criteria for selling. 

“I did not want to hand it over and walk away; that’s not what I’ve ever wanted to do. This is very much part of my life.”

Allen says she has been approached by potential buyers on multiple occasions over the years, but when Halo Food Co got in touch 18 months ago, she immediately felt the partnership would be a good fit. 

“For me, if we were going to do it, it was about making sure we were with the right partner. Because to me, it is always about the long-term future of the business, and not just about the short-term sale,” she says. 

Crucially, Halo Food Co has manufacturing capabilities, which Allen says means The Healthy Mummy will no longer need to work with contract manufacturers to produce its health and nutrition retail products, and is “critical” to being able to scale the business further. 

The Healthy Mummy has previously focused on its own e-commerce sales and ventured into physical retail stores for the first time in September 2021 through a deal with Priceline. 

By bringing its manufacturing in house, it will be able to add to these retail channels, says Allen, and consider expanding into other international markets too. 

The pandemic has been a “real eye-opener” about the importance of having control over your business’ own supply chain, says Allen, as using contract manufacturers means there’s only “so much you can do without putting the business at risk and the existing customer base at risk”. 

Halo Food Co’s manufacturing experience will be essential in helping The Healthy Mummy expand its product range and tap into new markets, says Allen. 

“It feels like it’s a really good partnership where they’re going to bring so much to us in that production and scalability area, and then we’ve got the online space, which is our bread and butter,” she adds.