CHEEKY Chompers, the baby care business established by two new mothers, is to launch in China.

The expansion comes as the company celebrates the sale of its millionth product since launching in 2013.

The Edinburgh business is also introducing a new muslin cloth to its range of premium lines, and has signed a deal in the UK with Tesco for an “essentials” range that is already available in 600 US stores.

Its founders hope this frenetic activity could help revenue for the year increase to about £4 million.

“China was always on our radar,” said Julie Wilson, who co-founded Cheeky Chompers with Amy

Livingstone after they met on an anti-natal course.

The company’s largest overseas market is the US, but Ms Wilson noted this is followed by Taiwan, while strong sales in Hong Kong and South Korea have helped drive exports to 70 per cent of the firm’s sales. It now exports to 35 countries.

“We’ve always had a lot of interest from distributors in China but we just never met the right one,” she said. “They weren’t premium enough or they didn’t cover the geography. Now we’ve found two partners who are premium, they love the ‘made in UK’ values and the quality.”

The company is working with Little Star Brands, a Chinese retailer with more than 1,000 outlets across the country, while another firm will distribute the company’s range into independent shops.

Ms Wilson and Ms Livingstone are due in China next month on marketing duties and to meet distributors ahead of the launch.

When they return focus will switch to the international launch of MultiMuslin. Ms Wilson said pre-

orders have been “phenomenal”.

“Muslin is such an on-trend fabric,” she said. “It’s been around for years but people haven’t done much with it. A lot of our products we take an essential item and add a cheeky twist to make it useful for parents and no one has really done that with muslin.”

The product highlights six uses, using an innovative design to incorporate a nursing cover, burp cloth, attachable shade for pushchairs,

a blanket, a swaddle, and two soft silicon teething rings.

The company, which made its name with a neckerchew that combined a bib with a teething chew, has expanded staff from six to 10 over the last year, and its manufacturing partner TotsBots has also expanded numbers as demand has increased.

Ms Wilson said having the

products manufactured in Glasgow continued to have the twin benefits of the appeal of British made products both at home and overseas, and for the close working relationships between the two parties.

“Amy and I have felt so strongly about having the ‘Made in the UK’ ethos,” she said. “It’s really exciting to see our team and their team growing, creating jobs locally. It’s also really important when we launch a new range. It’s been an iterative process, it’s been back and forth making sure it’s right, so they are very much partners in that.”

Ms Wilson concedes there would be commercial benefits to manufacturing in Asia, but said pitching the range as premium was helped by being made in the UK.

However, she said the company would consider moving production for its essentials range in the future.

This range, which was first launched in the US, allows the company to enter the supermarket sector for the first time.

“It is a basic range that is launching in Tesco in August, and is in 600 stores in the US already,” said Ms Wilson. “We recognise there is a market for a starter kit.”

Last year Ms Wilson said the firm was hoping to double its sales to about £2.5m. This year, she concedes that trajectory is difficult to maintain. “We’d always hope to double, but as time goes on it gets harder to keep doubling,” she said. “The muslin range expands the brand, and our brand is getting recognised now. We’re hoping for good 50 per cent growth [this year].”

In the midst of this hectic period, Ms Wilson and Ms Livingstone will be raising money for CLIC Sargent by climbing Ben Nevis with Monica Kalozdi, founder of Kalencom Corporation, the brand’s US distributor. “When we were over last year, Amy said ‘why don’t we climb Ben Nevis for a children’s charity, so we decided that’s what we’d do,” said Ms Wilson.