The Melbourne-based brand is founded by Ed Scott, former General Manager of Life-Space Group, which was acquired by Chinese dietary supplement firm BYHEALTH in 2018.
In its latest strategic move, myBrainCo is working with StirlingFildes Plus, a division of StirlingFildes, which has supplied Australian pharmacies with a comprehensive range of products and solutions—from prescription labels to packaging—for over 90 years.
“In Australia, we’ve got key wholesalers like Sigma Healthcare and Australian Pharmaceutical Industries (API). These are great wholesalers, but they all represent a particular group of pharmacies. We’ve gone at it from a different angle,” Scott told NutraIngredients.
“Unlike API and Sigma that may have accounts with say 2000 pharmacies, StirlingFildes has accounts with 5,000. They see an opportunity to disrupt a bit of the typical approach.”
Scott added that as StirlingFildes already has well-established relationships within the pharmacy industry, it is not a massive step for the company to maintain its core business, while also starting to represent a select handful of brands and offer them as a wholesale solution to the pharmacies.
Despite myBrainCo’s presence in about 250 health food stores across Australia, it is still a fresh face in the pharmacy space.
“We’re in the midst of discussions with various pharmacy groups. We’re in early days but we are not a new brand. We are one of the fastest-growing direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands in Australia. We are seeing the entry of more premium brands into the pharmacy sector, and we intend to play within that space,” he said.
The brand’s value proposition lies in its clinician-formulated products and “enormous validation” from consumer feedback. Scott himself is said to have created over 200 formulations over the years.
“We’ve got 14 to 15,000 reviews on our website, with an average of 4.8 out of five stars. My investors and I came from Life-Space, and we have years of experience in the nutraceutical industry. We are not just a couple of cowboys jumping in thinking this might be a good cash opportunity.”
Through the expansion of sales channels, the brand hopes to provide its existing customer base with added convenience. It is also looking to strengthen its marketing communication going forward.
From online to brick-and-mortar
myBrainCo was launched seven years ago, right before the pandemic, which Scott said propelled Australian consumers a decade ahead of where they were in terms of their comfort with e-commerce purchases.
“Australia was a long way behind before COVID. These days, many people are more comfortable. There are still consumers who visit pharmacies and prefer to have that in-person experience. They’re perhaps still a little distrusting of online companies, which is why we offer a money-back guarantee to try to break down some of those hurdles,” he explained.
“We spent seven years building a digital brand, and we’ve got a subsidiary in the US where we’ve established our business as well. But the reality is that for the brand to go to where we want it to go, we need to play more on the omnichannel.”
About one to two years ago, myBrainCo started tapping into the practitioner market, which has performed well. At the same time, the brand is available via health foods stores.
According to Scott, both channels have limitations in their scale, so pharmacy was the next logical progression.
“It was a progression created out of demand by consumers and our wish to increase convenience for these people. While many of our customers are happy to buy online, they would also enjoy the experience of being able to purchase in-store.
“Although we are in many health food stores, they don’t have the same scope of distribution that we hope to achieve through pharmacies. Brand validation and credibility, scale of business, and value-added service for our existing customers— these are our major drivers to go into pharmacy.”
In Australia, it is common for major players such as Swisse and Blackmores to have presence in pharmacies. Despite the comparatively higher price point of myBrainCo’s products, Scott believes that Australian consumers are “ready for it”.
“I think there are a lot of me-too, commodity-style products, where consumers are left scratching their heads between products that appear the same but have perhaps a couple of dollars’ difference.”
myBrainCo’s premium positioning aims to provide consumers with greater access to more complex, practitioner-formulated products that offer better value.
