Words by Rosalind Thacker
After years spent playing football, Thomas Hal Robson-Kanu is busy making his “secret weapon” accessible to all.
Have you ever wondered what a professional footballer eats? If you’ve ever idolised a football player, you’d probably be interested. And if you met them, you’d probably want to ask them, ‘what’s your secret?’, “how do you keep so fit?” But Thomas “Hal” Robson-Kanu is not keeping it secret. In fact, he’s built his whole business sharing that “secret”, the one that has kept him fit and healthy. Robson-Kanu wasn’t always at such pinnacle fitness. His route into football, he tells me, was quite the opposite. Most football stories have the same origin – same plot, different title kinda vibes. A lot of them read something like this: scouted at a young age, real star potential. Then come the years of working hard, making it to the top, before eventually hanging up the boots. Not Robson-Kanu, though.
At age 15 came a major injury, resulting in surgery. And, just when things began to look up, he found himself back on the doctor’s chair. This time, for revision surgery. He was 16 – and when he got to 17, he found himself without game time for two and a half years.Then came the much-dreaded words every young baller fears: “you’re never going to play without pain again.” There’d always be some restriction to his playing ability, he was told. But like most young footballers – possessed, as they are, with undeniable confidence – he thought of little else but carrying on. The doctors were right, and Robson-Kanu struggled with persistent knee problems upon his return to playing. It wasn’t just on-the-pitch struggles, either. The 33-year-old speaks of difficulties walking up the stairs or keeping his knee still for too long: “It was a really traumatic experience for a young professional, with aspirations of achieving a dream.”
What Robson-Kanu didn’t know was that this would be a different origin story – the origin story of The Turmeric Co. His dad, he said, got to work, whipping up a cocktail of ingredients he was to take for around six to eight weeks. It worked, and he found himself bouncing around the pitch, pain-free, enjoying the beautiful game once more. Just a year later, he made his first team debut. Then came the big international call-up and after that, his Premier League debut. It was, he says, his “secret weapon.”
Even though he had his secret weapon throughout his career, his life on the field wasn’t without its challenges: “For me, it was always about living within my means and investing into passions of mine… If you’re going to invest in anything, invest in yourself,” he added. For Thomas Hal Robson-Kanu, that means finding what it is you’re really passionate about, learning and understanding “everything about it” and investing into it: “If you’re not passionate about that industry or what you’re doing, you’re never going to overcome that. And ultimately, you won’t be successful in what you’re doing.” It’s something he’s super big on, passion, and he talks at length about it in our chat. You can’t fake genuine enthusiasm for a cause or project, he says, arguing that schools should do more to ignite creative and entrepreneurial passions in students.
He carried that passion from pitch to business venture, creating something he could pour his all into. Playing football in the world’s toughest league takes some real guts. Creating your own business – especially when you’re new to the whole entrepreneurial game – can be harder still.
Spare some thought for footballers. You’re probably thinking it’s a world filled with money, flashy cars and big prizes. And, given you get to retire young (spending your remaining days doing whatever the hell you want) it must be the perfect dream job. In many ways, it is – but you’d also find footballers (especially ones like Robson-Kanu) keen to push on long after they’re done wiht the beautiful game. Scarred by injuries and the likelihood of not being able to play again, he’s found himself building a business of his own, pouring just about everything he has into it.
The idea behind The Turmeric Co. is a fairly simple one: a business with a mission to make people healthy, the healthy way. It’s borne of passion and experience, meaning you’re more likely to come across authentic products.
“For me, it was always about living within my means and investing into passions of mine… If you’re going to invest in anything, invest in yourself“
“We’ve been conditioned to think that the only convenient option for food is fast-food or processed food. Natural, high-quality food is expensive and inaccessible.” Robson-Kanu is here to rewrite that narrative. He’s a strong advocate for the power of natural nutrition. And he’s got some big names in the sports industry using it, too.
Robson-Kanu is changing the narrative around health and well-being products. As a society, our relationship with health has its problems. The industry is riddled with disingenuous influencers promoting products they’ve never used just to secure a bag, marketing any well-being products just to feed into people’s insecurities and try to offer a “solution,” which needs to change. Robson-Kanu says he just wants to give back, and it’s clear that The Turmeric Co. is different. It’s not just because the people promoting the product are the athletes that swear by it, but also because Robson-Kanu just wants to make a positive change.
To summarise, a lot of athletes might care about leaving a legacy, or being remembered for breaking records. But it’s not about that for Robson-Kanu. Everyone will either live in the future or in the past – and that’s limiting, he says. “You are limitless. You’re here. You’re not influenced by scars of the past or possibilities of the future. You’re just living in the now.” So for Robson-Kanu, it’s not about creating a legacy, it’s about living a fulfilling life in the present – and his passion is what’s keeping him there.