Former Premier League star claims he has the solution that will save the NHS £23BILLION per year: Ex-Welsh footballer runs business that aims to prevent problem that hindered his career

Hal Robson-Kanu claims he can prevent your inflammation, chronic pain, or ailment. 

He also claims he can save the NHS £23billion a year by ‘completely eradicating’ its need to care for them.

Needless to say, the former Premier League star is a brazen salesman. But is there any truth in what he preaches?

As it happens, his products have flown off the shelves to rave reviews.  

Robson-Kanu, 36, founded his company The Turmeric Co in 2018. It’s a brand which produces bottled shots packed with raw turmeric root with the aim of fighting inflammation, helping muscle recovery, and boosting one’s immune functions.

He set up the business after finding that turmeric shots helped him battle injury setbacks during his playing career – particularly a cruciate knee ligament rupture when he was still a teenager. 

His products have done well. You’ll find the pricey shots in Boots, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, and David Lloyd Clubs, while they have partnered with Premier League clubs such as Liverpool, Everton and Brentford. Clearly he is on to something. 

Robson-Kanu calls turmeric, the flowering plant native to Asia, his ‘secret weapon’. Throughout lockdown, when he was at West Brom and the Championship was brought to a standstill, he was working several hours per day around training to build his brand.

His drive comes from a personal place. When he was 16 years old at Reading, his left leg was ‘snapped in half’ by a horror challenge playing against MK Dons.

He needed surgery on his cruciate knee ligament, then suffered the same injury a month after his return and had to go under the knife again. He feared he would never play again. When he did, it came with constant aches and pains. 

That’s where his journey began with his father, Rechi. The duo began researching natural herbs and remedies which could support his health and recovery. Turmeric kept popping up, as did ginger, pomegranates, and pineapples.

He is a big fan of the phrase often ascribed to the ancient Greek philosopher and physician Hippocrates: ‘Let food be thy medicine, and let medicine be thy food.’ 

‘We began mixing these ingredients into a blend and after using the mixture we had blended, we realised that not only was it completely natural, when you took it you felt a bit of a boost,’ he told Daily Mail Sport in 2020.

‘It became a secret weapon for me throughout my career and it allowed me to recovery quicker than most.’

‘[We] set about a mission to bring an actual functional range of turmeric shots which were high quality to a mass-consumer market.’ 

The Turmeric Co has been a huge success. Even by 2018, he was able to sell a ‘single-digit’ stake for a ‘seven-figure sum’ in total to investors, including the founders of the Rubicon drinks brand and the comedian Joel Dommett. 

Last year, his company Innate-Essence sold a majority stake of 50.01 per to Irn Bru makers AG Barr for £15million. 

All pleasant reading, so far. But often with these feel-good tales there are aspects of inflation. 

In 2021, The Turmeric Co were slapped on the wrist by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). 

One of their social media promotions had breached the UK advertising code by ‘stating or implying a food could prevent, treat, or cure a human disease’.

‘Bid farewell to stubborn aches and pains with our natural anti-inflammatory immunity-boosting shots,’ the company had promised in a Facebook advert, among other claims. 

‘Imagine waking up without those lasting aches and pains that are holding you back!’

In fairness to Robson-Kanu, he and his business held up their hands on that occasion and promised not to make the same claims in future adverts. 

But that won’t stop him from making grandiose statements on podcasts.  

‘We are here to change the lives of people’ he recently told the Performance People podcast. ‘Our vision with the Turmeric Co is to eventually have [our products] prescribed by the NHS. 

‘That would democratise health to the level where £23billion of cost on the NHS, which is driven by inflammation, chronic pain and ailments every year, is completely eradicated because of preventative measures.

‘My intention is to engage the government and we serious about moving a significant amount of our healthcare system from a treatment-based system to a preventative system. We are going to help a lot of people… who live with ailments and pain and just accept it. 

‘There are no side effects of turmeric.’

It is not clear where Robson-Kanu has plucked his £23billion figure from, nor is it entirely true that turmeric doesn’t have ‘side effects’ in a certain sense. 

In 2024-25, the Department of Health and Social Care allocated around £187bn to NHS England for spending on health services.

Robson-Kanu is therefore claiming that his small turmeric-based product could save the UK’s National Health Service a whopping 12.3 per cent of its annual budget. That’s a gigantic claim. 

While turmeric is a healthy and safe ingredient to consume, its active compound curcumin can cause side effects in high doses. 

Turmeric is a natural blood thinner (to can cause increased bleeding), can worse gallstones, can contribute to kidney stones, and at higher doses risks causing digestive issues, nausea, headaches, stomach irritation, diarrhoea, and dizziness. 

Obviously, too much of most things can have negative consequences, but it is worth checking if any of turmeric’s effects could combine with your current medication to have a harmful impact. 

Combining it with Aspirin or Warfarin without medical supervision is not advised due to the unpredictable increased bleeding risk. 

On the whole, though, studies verify that turmeric is anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and good for the heart and wider health. Robson-Kanu has hit the spot – maybe just not to the tune of £23bn.