Meet Eoin Keenan who turned a personal journey, with anxiety, into a multi-million pound CBD business
Last year I was lucky enough to get tickets for Glastonbury.
Of course, there were many highlights, but there was one particular moment that stood out for me: a group of revellers drinking cans of Goodrays instead of booze at the campsite, laughing and relaxing, completely in the moment. It was a real moment of, ‘wow, we did it.’
It’s hard to find those special moments when you’re running a drinks company that’s doubling in size every year, and I’ve made it a goal in 2025 to make sure I check in more often and remember why I started doing this. We hear from war veterans, elite athletes and tee-totallers who reach out to say thank-you for providing something that really helped them navigate something that they needed help with. That’s the most rewarding part. We’re now sold in Tesco, Waitrose, Sainsbury’s, some of the top retailers in France and our ambitions to grow are not slowing down.
How the journey began
In 2014, while at university, I started to suffer from anxiety and all of the symptoms it entailed – insomnia, high blood pressure for example. It’s hard to say what triggered it: a combination of studying and personality I guess, as well as putting pressure on myself to do well. Back then, there was something of a stigma around men speaking about their mental health, and as my business has grown it has become increasingly important for me to speak up about this as it has formed the whole basis of the company.
I started to look into what I could do to improve my mental wellbeing and, completely by chance, came across CBD as a natural and holistic way to help me. I studied as much as I could around the topic and discovered that properties within CBD have been found to offer relief from anxiety, increase mental focus and clarity and offer natural energy as well as improving sleep and physical pain, inflammation, and muscle fatigue.
Intrigued, I started to dose daily, monitoring the improvements in my energy, focus, clarity and calmness. I became obsessed, completing my dissertation on CBD and international CBD policy. From there, I travelled to Northern California for two years as part of my research: got my hands dirty and worked on a hemp farm. I did everything from planting seeds to customer deliveries. The whole experience opened my eyes to the future of CBD products.
The next step was setting up a Data and Regulatory Agency in which we were able to educate policymakers, major players in the food and drink industry, and we held events and conferences to educate around the world’s most misunderstood plant. We acted as a sort of linchpin between industry, policy and patients and played an integral part in getting CBD and Medical Cannabis legalised in 2018.
Brand beginnings
Shortly after this, I looked into setting up my own brand. I didn’t realise it at the time but what I wanted to create was the brand I was searching for back in 2014. A brand that educated people, delivered effective, great-tasting products and stood up for mental wellbeing in an authentic and credible way. Ten years on, supermarkets are now creating designated bays for functional drinks and bars and restaurants are now stocking our range: the change in the last decade, from perception to consumer behaviour has been phenomenal. Back then, there wasn’t much choice on the market and it was incredibly hard to find products that tasted good, were credible, were third-party tested, and carried the right amounts of CBD needed, per dose, to really make a difference.
Founding Goodrays, I set out to create a truly credible range of CBD products, based on the science behind the hype, sourcing the finest CBD and building a legacy brand around true function, flavour and style. Five years later, we are one of the fastest growing soft drinks brands in Europe, introducing millions of people to CBD and launching mental wellbeing initiatives to tackle the world’s mental health epidemic. Now, in some grocers we are outselling Lucozade, Monster and Redbull. From day one, we’ve stuck to the same ethos: we are here to help busy minds find calm and clarity.
For too long, mental wellbeing has been ignored by the food and drink industry, dominated by high sugar, hard alcohol and ultra-processed foods. But times are changing. In a world of hyperstimulation, mental wellbeing has become more important than high-caffeine boosts. The most cited reason for people using our products is around reducing stress, improving sleep and finding calm. To help people with their mental health is the cornerstone of what we are doing and we have an ongoing partnership with MIND to ensure our customers know what we are all about.
What is CBD?
CBD, short for Cannabidiol, is one of over 120 cannabinoids that are produced by the humble hemp plant, which has been used for millenia for its wellness properties. It’s the second most prevalent compound in the plant, not to be confused with THC, the molecule responsible for giving cannabis its characteristic mind-altering properties. CBD is non-psychoactive so cannot get you high. CBD has been shown to reduce anxiety, aid physical recovery, reduce inflammation and pain, and increase quality of sleep.
At Goodrays, all of our CBD is extracted from Colorado-grown hemp. It grows faster than trees, sequesters ten times as much carbon dioxide and helps regenerate topsoil. It takes CO2 out of the atmosphere, cycles it back into the ground and extracts toxins from the ground after industrial farming, stopping them from reaching groundwater. It’s a wonderplant!
Provenance in the world of CBD is everything. We only work with the absolute best suppliers in California and Colorado. They are the world’s most sustainable growers, and the plants are three times more potent than anything in Europe. We work with them to ensure that everything is regenerative, sustainable and we are working towards using hemp, a natural soil binder and carbon sequester, to use hemp fibre materials in our merchandise, and we hope packaging one day soon.
Overcoming stigmas, misconceptions and other challenges
The CBD industry has taught me that there is no silver bullet, no magic recipe for growth. Simple, repetitive and focused work eventually delivers results. Do the right things at the right time. And for us, we needed distribution before we could go big on marketing and brand awareness.
Four years ago, mention CBD to someone and they’d think cannabis – something that made you ‘high’. We’re now at a point where consumers know that this isn’t the case.
In my experience, startup and scaleup brands are always more dynamic and creative than big brands. We can react quicker to trends and we have the ability to continuously test and validate different tactics and strategies.
We always talk about community, customer service and ‘the first 1000’ customers being the most important. Building inclusive, accessible communities and delivering real-life content (behind the scenes, user generated content, founder and team stories), will always beat flashy big-budget, out-of-home and tv advertising.
On the horizon
With CBD set to be fully market authorised by the Food Standard Agency in Spring, 2025 is likely to be the biggest year yet. New channel partners are adopting the category with alarming pace and existing retail partners are deepening and widening their range.
If we look at the US market, where three in five consumers have purchased CBD, we forecast that the UK market will triple in demand over the next three years. We’re literally just scratching the surface.
So, our mission is to become more than a product. Our mission is to become the go-to community that enables and inspires people to improve their mental wellbeing by introducing CBD into their everyday life. For this, we not only focus our marketing on the all-natural ingredients and premium quality of our product, but also what we stand for and how we are enabling people to improve their mental wellbeing. Because a good life needs a clear head to navigate.
At a glance: CBD supplements
- CBD, short for Cannabidiol, derives from the hemp plant. Unlike its counterpart, THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), CBD does not produce the psychoactive effects commonly associated with cannabis use.
- From anxiety, inflammation and insomnia, to epilepsy, arthritis and chronic pain, it has been touted as beneficial and, in some cases, game changing, for a wide variety of health issues
- According to a 2019 Colorado Study focusing on the efficacy of CBD on sleep and anxiety, two months after the start of CBD treatment, 78.1 percent of patients reported improvement in anxiety and 56.1 percent of patients reported improvement in sleep.
- Some of the strongest scientific evidence for its effectiveness surrounds epilepsy conditions such as Dravet syndrome and Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, which typically don’t respond well to antiseizure medications. In numerous studies, pharmaceutical CBD significantly reduced the number of seizures and, in some cases, halted them altogether
- The Food Standards Agency has announced plans to issue full authorisations for CBD products by spring 2025. It’s a major milestone for the category and arms consumers with confidence that available products are safe and legally compliant
- The global CBD industry was valued at $7.71 billion in 2023 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 15.8 percent between 2024-2030. Here in the UK, the CBD drinks market is projected to overtake Kombucha in early 2025, leading the growth of functional drinks – the fastest growing segment of the UK soft drinks market
Eoin Keenan is the founder of Goodrays
