Meet the Gloucestershire business behind Olbas Oil, Jakemans and Pro Plus

BusinessLive spoke to the boss of Lanes Health, to discuss his journey from production line to boardroom in the family business, as well as the firm’s history and growth plans

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Many of us may have come across their products when trying to shake off a cold or various other ailments.

But not everyone may know the company that makes tablets and herbal remedies for prominent over the counter health brands such as Olbas, Kalms and Pro Plus, is a 90-year-old family business based off an unassuming residential road in Gloucestershire.

Lanes Health was originally founded in 1930 by Gilbert Lane and his wife Grace, who wrote and sold books on diet and health, alongside recipe books and kitchen utensils from their home in the Forest of Dean.

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After several moves around Gloucestershire, including a stint in a Victorian pin factory, the business will mark a half century at its current headquarters in the Longlevens area of Gloucester next year.

It was in the early 1970s that Lanes Health acquired the rights to manufacture and distribute one of its most recognizable products, decongestant Olbas Oil, from its Swiss owners.

The company has seen growth in recent years, acquiring cough sweets brand Jakemans and its operation in Boston, Lincolnshire, in 2007, with the group now employing around 170 people across its operations as of last year.

In its most recently reported financial year, the firm recorded a pre-tax profit of £3.5m - up from £2.3m a year earlier - with turnover also rising in 2022 to £23.2m from £21.2m in 2021.

Equipped with a hairnet, long white coat and plastic shoe covers, I visited the Lanes Health factory on Sissons Road earlier this year, where I was joined by managing director Jonathan Groves for a tour around the site’s production lines and laboratories.

Mr Groves, who is the fourth generation of his family to take on the leadership of the business, told me he was now targeting to double the company’s turnover.

“I remember when we first bought Jakemans, we set ourselves targets every single year”, Mr Groves recalls, amid the rattling of small medicine bottles making their way across a packaging conveyor belt. “That saw Jakemans grow from £2m up to nearly £20m at the moment. In the 16 years that we’ve owned it, that’s quite good growth.

“You need those targets to help drive things on and give everyone on the site something to aim at and be proud of and achieve something. I really think we can easily hit £50m within the next few years, maybe even go a little beyond that as well.

“I don’t think my sales director would be very happy with that though, they always caution me on being too optimistic! But I think it's something you need to do. So let’s see where we can get to without losing what we have.”

Mr Groves was given the reins as MD around a year ago, though he has been around the family trade since he was a child. Next year will mark his 20th year working for the company, and during those two decades he has worked in almost every department of the business.

He began working on the production lines during the summer as a teenager, and one year inputted data for every single piece of stock into its planning software system.

He later worked as territory manager for the firm, travelling around the country speaking and selling products to pharmacies and health food stores. He then spent a few years with the marketing team and later was part of the planning and purchasing side of the operation, buying in the raw materials used to make products.

The only departments Mr Groves hasn’t worked in are the finance and science departments, though he said his experience had given him a good understanding of every aspect of the business. He said though it was never his intention to one day land the top job.

Mr Groves said: “I guess you always doubt yourself a little bit, so I never really thought about it. My mum Janet was here and she was the King of everything, she had all the history, and really showed me the way. That was mum’s role, it wasn’t mine. I was part of the board but when our previous MD stepped down we had a vacuum.

“Mum did not want to do all the day-to-day stuff, because she hadn’t been doing that for quite some time. Speaking with the directors they all said they wanted me. At that stage I was catapulted from just doing my day job to being told they wanted me to run the business.”

Mr Groves, who previously pursued a career selling diamond drill bits after his university studies, said he thought it would have been “stupid” not to have been hesitant about the prospect of taking on a role with such great responsibility.

He said: “My great grandfather was here, my grandfather was here, I‘ve watched them, and my mum as well. This great institution is now on me, and that is terrifying in a way.

“You have got all these people who require you to manage the business in a way that we continue to grow and drive forward, because otherwise you are putting all of those people’s lives at risk. That is a real responsibility that you have to be aware of and you damn well better take it seriously.”

Mr Groves described his first year as MD as “amazing”, and attributed its recent growth partly to a post-pandemic rebound in sales, as social distancing measures were relaxed, resulting in renewed demand for cold medicines. He added that Lanes Health did have to contend with disruption to bringing in raw materials and protracted lead times, which he said had thrown “massive spanners in the works”.

“Where everything was quite regimented, you placed an order, 60 days later it would come in. But it suddenly went to six months. That just causes all sorts of problems. If you don’t get the goods in, you can't test on time, if you’re not testing on time then the production schedule gets changed, so it puts additional work on every single person. We needed to get that back under control, and that’s probably been the hardest thing that I’ve dealt with so far this year.”

“We have been ordering things a lot earlier, testing things a lot earlier, making sure we are ahead of the game, which is a bit of a risk as you’re tying more cash into the raw materials and the testing time. We’ve also been making sure we have got the dates and the lead times to keep material in date, so it doesn't then disrupt our pipeline again.”

Mr Groves said the biggest change the long-running company had seen over the decades was around the testing regulations that come with being a licensed manufacturer. The businessman said that “additional complications” in this area had arisen after Brexit, with the company having to adjust to differing rules when supplying to Ireland since the UK’s departure from the EU.

While it has had to adapt to a changing industrial landscape, Mr Groves said Lanes Health had always believed in maintaining its values and its refusal to “sell out”. He confirmed that the business had previously been approached about a possible sale.

Mr Groves said: “The family all love the fact that we manufacture here in the UK. We look after every single person on this site, it's like an extended family, and we’re the guardians of that. We want to make sure we are still around and able to look after them. It's never even crossed anyone’s mind to look at selling out.

“I am fourth generation but my cousin’s have got their fifth generation coming up and they're already showing an interest in getting involved. It’s a really big responsibility to take on that mantle and you’re always wary of the past and what can happen in business if things aren't done properly. It's always been what we want it to be.”

Lanes Health is targeting further growth over the next few years, including through more potential product acquisitions. While Mr Groves said the prospect of outgrowing the firm’s current site would be “amazing”, he was keen to impress that it was important to the company that it remained in Gloucestershire.

“I love this county, it's where I have grown up since I was a little kid, all of my history is here. We invest in the people around here”, Mr Groves said, adding: “The biggest challenge is making sure you’re not losing the character of everyone within this business, and stepping outside of our core beliefs and our values. You could easily do something to gain a few quid, but that could be detrimental to everything you believe in.”