Cricketer Jonty Rhodes has used his fitness secrets to devise a nutrition supplement that will hit the markets soon.
Jonty Rhodes, the former South African cricketer who is widely accepted as one of greatest fielders ever, has a new hat: that of an entrepreneur. Evolution Sports Network, the company of which he is a director, will hit the Indian markets in about a week’s time with its brand of “dope-free” certified nutritional supplements catering to the health, wellness, lifestyle and sports categories.
This is Rhodes’s third business venture — the first two failed, so Rhodes says he has “fallen back on what I know”. “In the last two years, I’ve been focussing on fielding, coaching because of which I spend about four months in India,” says Rhodes, sitting in the café bar of a Mumbai hotel. “I tried a few business ventures from South Africa like exporting wine into India which didn’t work out too well. I was known as a fielder but what allowed me to be half-decent was that I was a pretty fit guy; so it makes sense to concentrate in this field now.”
ESN is targeted at office-goers who lead a sedentary lifestyle or don’t have the time to go to the gym. The nutrition supplements the company offers, Rhodes says, can alleviate lifestyle-related diseases like depression, obesity and diabetes, besides enhancing performance. The company offers 12 different products, developed with the aid of the experiences Rhodes has shared with the R&D team at ESN.
“Since one-day and T20 matches end very late, players who live mostly on hotel food don’t get any nutritional value out of their food,” says Rhodes. Neither can they have a three-course meal before because it would make them fall asleep while fielding at backward point or batting. Given his own experience of this, Rhodes claim he understands what people need from their supplements which they should ideally be getting from their diet itself. Also, he maintains, even a steady, balanced diet is guaranteed to be beneficial since “the way food is processed these days, even if it is supposedly fresh out of the ground, the soil nutrients and pesticides used take away all the goodness”.
From the retail point of view, ESN’s supplements will not be sold through gyms because “half the people we want to sell to might not be attending a gym”; therefore it will be distributed through high-end pharmacies, supermarkets, and directly to offices who might want to have a healthier staff. The products are for the “average middle-class person, anyone willing to pay Rs 2,000 per month” to supplement his diet.
“We are not saying that you take this product and you will be cured of your ailments, or that you will be fit be the next poster-boy for some underwear-range. All we are saying is that you don’t have to go to the gym to start a healthy life-style,” concludes Rhodes.