A Cwmbran business sells its products 24 hours a day on TikTok’s live shopping channel.
When Katie Summers and Julianna Woods, the founders of The Mellow Patch Company, told me this, I had to find out more.
The two friends met around 20 years ago as members of the We Are What We Are theatre company at Newport’s Dolman Theatre. In 2023, they launched their business selling patches and products using natural products to “promote calm, tranquility, and overall well-being”.
We were sitting upstairs in their office on the Forgehammer Industrial Estate and I’d just been given a coffee by Caroline, Julianna’s mum (warehouse packer).
Already that morning, I’d unknowingly also bumped into Katie’s husband, Nick (warehouse manager), and I was sitting in a chair usually occupied by Lloyd (Katie’s brother), the sales director
Their business is proud to be a family-run affair with Katie’s daughter Edie, six, helping out on TikTok sales. It was half-term during my visit, and she was there with their Cockapoo, Sid. He was missing his mate, Sky, Julianna’s chocolate Labrador, who was across the road having a groom at Pets At Home.
Nice coffee. Lovely dogs. Family-friendly. I could work here!
I was told that Sid and Sky love spending the day together while their owners and their families (including Karen, Katie’s mum, and Sarah, Katie’s aunty) run the business, packing and mailing out TikTok and website orders to customers.
‘Natural patches to help with stress and anxiety’
Their idea to start making and selling natural patches to help with stress and anxiety came over a coffee in Costa in Next Cwmbran. They had already started a monthly membership support club for mums, but wanted to sell a product.
Julianna, a former pupil at Fairwater Comprehensive School, said: “Katie just went ‘patches, patches!’ and it just came from there.”
Katie, who lives in New Inn, said: “To some people, patches would mean nicotine or HRT patches, but no one was kind of familiar with what they can bring naturally.
“We got in contact with a lab [in South Yorkshire] because everything we do is UK, our boxes, our patches, everything. We had a conversation with them, and it literally just went from there.
“We set up in Ju’s [Julianna) walk-in wardrobe in her old house where she used to live, and she went live on TikTok one day and said ‘I just did 11 sales’.”
‘Sold 15,000 patches’
Julianna, who lives in Llantarnam, said: “I put my phone on top of my coffee machine and just went live and then 11 people bought. We knew we were onto something then.”
Katie said: ‘We sold over 15,000 patches in the first couple of weeks. I was still working full-time and Ju was running it all day. I’d come home, do tea, go back up to Ju’s and we’d go live until midnight. We did that for a good couple of months and it just flew. That was for about four or five months, and then we were in here [their unit on Forghammer Industrial Estate].”
They moved into their unit in May 2024. Since then, the business has grown and now has five TikTok presenters who sell The Mellow Patch Company’s products around the clock to meet customers from time zones across the world.
The friends have been interviewed by TikTok several times and featured in the brands’ case study videos. Their products have appeared in women’s magazines including Bella, Closer and Take a Break.
‘No investors’
Katie said: “It’s just me and Ju, we put our savings in. We’ve got no investors. It’s absolutely catapulted.
“We’ve got interest from loads of retail and TV shopping. We’re launching in America.
“We’ve got a big supermarket chain out there interested in our children’s range. There’s a lot of retail interest which is exciting.”
The company has a warehouse in Maine, USA, stocked with its products ready to ship out Amazon and retail sales.
Julianna puts their success down to them continuing to be the faces of the brand with both appearing in a TikTok Live video each week.
She said: “We’re not a faceless brand. We are the face of the brand, and we grew it as ourselves.”
“We’ve got customers that show up online and they’ve been through the whole journey, they call it ‘from wardrobe to warehouse’ and they are loyal fans. It’s just a lush ‘Mellow’ family.”
Katie said: “Not only have we got a community, we’ve got a community of people and their reviews and emails are saying that we’ve changed their lives. That is huge. That’s what makes you get up in the morning.
“It’s beyond our wildest dreams.”
‘Goosepimply’
During a motorway coffee stop in the Midlands on the way to an awards ceremony, a member of staff in Costa suddenly recognised them. She didn’t just want to say ‘hello’, she pulled up her Costa work top to show that underneath she was wearing a Mellow Patch t-shirt.
Katie said: “We’re so in it, you don’t get time to raise your head above the parapet, do you, and think ‘fair play’. When we talk about it like this, I get all ‘goosepimply’.”
She described their relationship as “ying and yang”, with “one’s strength is the other’s weakness”, adding: “It’s the perfect marriage really.”
Katie gave one excellent bit of business advice for anyone worried about not knowing all the answers to problems that may arise when growing a company.
She simply said: “It’s been fly by the seat of our pants, learning as we go.”