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Hello, I'm Georgie Corrish Cole, Shlux's founder and CEO, and welcome to today's

Shirelux podcast. I am joined today by Gary Lavin, who is the founder of Fit Hit, the UK's

leading health drink brand. After a rugby injury ended his career at 24, Gary spotted a gap in the market, people working out and they're basically reaching for sugary drinks.

And that moment sparked the idea for Vittit.

The journey hasn't been 100% smooth from losing his home during the recession to selling bottles out of a van.

Gary stopped at nothing to bring his vision to life.

Today, it looks quite different though to that.

And it's sold in 15 countries, generates over 100 million euros in retail sales,

all without any outside investment.

I am a massive fan, Was, cross my heart,

I hope to die long before I met Gary, I was buying this drink. So it's even more thrilling to have you here to stay.

Welcome. Thanks a million. That's my life story. We don't have to talk about anything else now.

We need to talk about all of that. God, I'm fascinated. I mean, as I said, I am genuinely, I walked in here today with one of these. I had been drinking these long before I met you. I met you a few years ago now. Yeah, only two or three years ago we met you. But I was already a massive fan. So there's so much, so much to cover. But can you take us back to your early days? Sure. Rugby, what that taught you. Yeah, I was actually playing rugby in the amateur era. It went professional. I moved over here to the UK. I got a contract with Harlequins. Time of my life. Everything was amazing. And preseason training, banged my knee, lost my contract, life over. And if anybody listening to this has lost their job, it was the only thing I could do. I was a rugby player. I didn't know what else to do.

Holokrins,

they were mega back in the day,

were they were?

Are they still? I never played a game for them because I got into preseason, yeah. So I was a nearly man. And I had always been, both my parents were entrepreneur, so I'd always been buying and selling things. So believe it or not.

Tell me a bit about that.

Tell me about buying and selling

before rugby career

didn't happen.

...