Export success for Colin

PAUL WILKINSON

DROMORE man Colin Edgar has been making a splash in the export market after tailoring a product first used to good effect on horses for use in the sports recovery field.

Colin's company, CET Cryospas, has been producing therapeutic spas for the last eight years, initially in the equine market and latterly in sports recovery, where forays into England and the USA have won major sporting clients from the worlds of Super League Rugby, Premier League Football and America's National Football League and National Basketball Association.

His products have featured in a number of television programmes, from Sky Sports, UTV, BBC and RTE and orders have shot up from next to none in the first half of this year to more than 100,000 in the space of four months.

In his submission to The Leader's inaugural Banbridge and District Business Awards, Colin reported considerable success in the equine market, with spas dispatched as far afield as the USA and Canada, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Zimbabwe and across Europe.

"However," he added, "The equine market has been depressed for the last two or three years, so we developed the sports recovery product, which was launched last year and mainly sold in Ireland, largely to sports physios and rehab centres associated with GAA."

It was earlier this year that CET Cryospas launched an English export drive that rapidly built a solid client base, including rugby's Celtic Crusaders and football's Manchester City and Fulham FC, later setting their sights on the USA and reeling in the NFL's New York Jets and NBA's New Jersey Nets.

Fulham FC ordered three units after subjecting the spa to a four-month trial in the run-up to June's Europa League Cup Final in Hamburg, using sophisticated monitoring software to reportedly establish that a five-minute post-exercise session in the CET Cryospa resulted in quicker recovery.

Manchester City ordered three units for its stadium and discussed installing others at its Carrington training facility. Other orders have included a new fitness/rehab centre in Galway and a trial with Ipswich FC.

Colin told our judges, "Our spas were also installed at Murrayfield for the Magic weekend, where all 14 of rugby's Super League teams competed and also the Sevens Rugby World Cup Series." They were installed too at Twickenham for the penultimate round of the Sevens series, at Wembley for the Carnegie Cup Final and the England European football Championship qualifier soon afterwards, and at the Irish rugby team's pre-Six Nations training camp at Limerick.

The product has been featured on Sky Sports' rugby league magazine programme, ‘Boots n All' and is due to appear in another Sky Sports programme next month.

It was due to feature on UTV, BBC and RTE in the run-up to All-Ireland GAA final, Down players having used the spa as part of their recovery protocol.

In the three months prior to the recent business awards, CET Cryospas doubled its production capacity and, with orders outstripping production capacity, it was Colin's stated aim to do the same again in the two months following.

"We have a number of high profile parties wanting to trial the product," said Colin, "including a number of baseball, basketball and American Football teams and the German Olympic Association."