Irish Health Sector Puts Its Best Foot Forward

Irish health sector puts its best foot forward

The Irish love a get-together, the more so if it's health stores and their suppliers. Health Stores Ireland's chummy weekend in Shannon, County Clare, has now become an annual fixture.

The "Putting Our Best Foot Forward Again" event in late January is a carefully coordinated mix of growers, artisans, innovators, suppliers, service providers, educators and independent retailers.

Keynote speaker at the inaugural 2023 event, Tim Radley, had set the tone as one of collaboration and authenticity, a theme gladly taken up by this year's eager returnees.

More than 70 retailers representing 60-plus businesses joined with 40 trade exhibitors, magazine favourites such as Rude Health Magazine and New Natural Business.

Treacy's Oakwood Hotel in Shannon provides a large traditional ballroom setting with talks held in a bright, modern conservatory annexe. Concessionary room rates incentivise an informal pre-event social gathering and some of the participants extended their stay to catch some local 'must see' visitor attractions such as the Cliffs of Moher and Bunratty Castle while making store visits in nearby Ennis and Limerick.

Keynote speaker was author and consultant Martin Powell (pictured above) who teased out the topic of medicinal mushrooms to help retailers better understand this fast-growing category of natural health products.

Martin shared his experience and insights into the field, discussing the clinical application of mushrooms and some of the issues around the category, helping retailers to be more comfortable as guides to their customers towards relevant solutions and get them even more excited about the potential of working with these fantastic fungi.

The hot business topic of inventory and margin control was covered in a workshop led by tech innovator and retail specialist David Joyce from accounting software specialists, Big Red Cloud. This lively session reflected the growing awareness among retailers that margins and practices that may have helped sustain business practices in the past, specifically those that allowed retailers to innovate and help build unproven brands, will need to be examined with the knowledge that the cost structure has dramatically changed with employment-related cost pressures.

Health Stores Ireland teamed up with state-funded training provider Skillnet to launch a second version of 'Knowledge Accredited' at the event. Utilising engagement with retailers to examine trending topics and challenges, the webinar-based training programme tackles areas like social media-driven customer demand, regenerative farming, metabolic health, digestion and microbiome, presented by experts familiar with the requirements of independent health food retailers.

As part of their participation package, exhibitors, speakers and award winners were provided with professional pictures and video clips to share as #passionsupplychain on their own platforms.

The retailer awards are an integral part of the Health Stores Ireland weekend. They celebrate the difference that they make collectively and individually to their communities.