Natur Boutique: Natural Herbal Teas, With Ukrainian Heritage

Launched in 2013, Natur Boutique provides unique herbal teas and remedies, inspired by it’s Founder, Anton Le Khak’s Ukrainian origins, and business is booming!

Anton Le Khak’s mother got the entrepreneurial ball rolling in the Le Khak family back in 1991 (in Kyiv, Ukraine).

The family business started out by supplying herbal remedies from Vietnam, to customers in the capital, and further afield.

At a time characterised by product shortages in the Soviet Union, sales were brisk, and the business was a huge success, so much so, that in just a few years, Anton’s father was able to build a factory in Vietnam, for the company to produce their own herbal remedies and teas.

Anton moved to Britain to study at Oxford University. After graduating in 2008, he took a market research position at Accenture, although he had aspirations to follow in his parents’ footsteps, and to start his own business. 

Anton first got the opportunity to pursue his dreams after a chance conversation with one of his father’s customers, a French distributor with whom Anton had decided to bring health products to the UK. The distributor pulled out, but Anton forged on on his own, setting up a health food store in London, but unfortunately, he had to close the shop in 2011.

Despite this initial disappointment and steep learning curve, Anton gleaned a lot from running the health store, and he later realised that there was a growing market for herbal teas in the UK, and with some branding tweaks, the teas made by his family could do very well here in the UK, and so Natur Boutique was born.

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“I started selling my favourite herbal teas, such as Artichoke Tea and Lemongrass Tea, to a few local health food stores. My first customer was Peppercorns in West Hampstead. The buzz of making my first sale is something that I will never forget, and it helped me to see the potential of the brand here in the UK. My focus since then has been on bringing new varieties of herbal teas to market, with quality and sustainability as a driving force of my choices,” said Anton.

Since those early days, Natur Boutique’s teas have become a common sight in health stores, such as in Holland & Barrett, Planet Organic, Wholefoods, and Grape Tree. Their success has even led them to cross the pond, to stores such as HomeGoods in the USA.

Anton puts a large amount of Natur Boutique’s success down to the family nature of the business:

“I’m certain that I wouldn’t have had the success I have without my family’s support. My family were very familiar with their local market, but if they’d launched their brand here, I don’t think it would have worked well. There are small things that are hard to recognise if you’re not fully submerged in a culture, from subtly different taste preferences, to the types of fonts used on packaging,” added Anton.

Natur Boutique’s range now includes 20+ products, from reishi to hibiscus teas, to black garlic capsules, to aloe vera gel. Anton’s success has even resulted in him producing own label products for other high street brands.

Find out more here: https://naturboutique.co.uk