Bumblezest! Shaking Up The Industry, One Sip At A Time
The drinks industry has been under scrutiny this past year; as the traditional front runner soft-drinks are condemned for having excess sugar, leading to a whole host of health issues, and failing to adapt to changing consumer needs, great companies are born. Among these, Bumblezest. Stripping out nearly all hidden sugars, they concentrate on generous doses of healthy, functional ingredients, leading to a beautifully delightful product to radicalise the drinks industry. We spoke to founder Daniel to hear about how he’s bottled the future.
So what is Bumblezest?
We’re a drinks business, with a twist; we have up to 8 functional ingredients in every can and bottle which helps to keep a balanced life whilst being incredibly tasty and low in sugar. We’re also environmentally friendly using little glass bottles, aluminium caps and cans and ensuring our ingredients are ethically sourced. These are real differentiators compared with other drinks in the market.
Where did the Bumblezest journey begin?
BumbleZest was started in my kitchen. I struggled to keep a balanced lifestyle working in property and living in a city with lots of distractions, so began crafting recipes from my garden. Quickly, it evolved into sourcing natural ingredients from around the world; I wanted to help everyone deal the rigours of modern life, by tailoring a natural remedy in each bottle.
What kind of challenges come with being a start-up in the beverages world?
Like all start-ups in the industry (actually all companies) we have lots of different challenges everyday. Some of them are big, like will an ingredient from the other side of the world turn up in time for our bottling day, and some of them are smaller challenges, like who has the time that day to take our office dog ‘Indie’ for her daily walk. We work as a team, know each others strengths and mainly do not panic! So we overcome obstacles together and my advice would be everything has a solution… at least they have so far!
What advice would you give to someone starting out in the food industry?
Just work hard and go for it — I would say worry less, but that’s easier said than done! I’ve loved every minute of being in the food and drink industry, and never could have imagined we’d be where we are today — being stocked in over 850+ different places in 10 countries — from where we started two years ago.
What’s something you’re most proud of with Bumblezest?
Innovation — we strive to be trend pioneers, which can be seen by our wide variety of drinks formats and ingredients we now have available. Seeing positive social media feedback, particularly from customers who have found our products overseas, is particularly pleasing.
What would you want the future to look like?
We are now in 10 countries and hope to keep driving our international expansion, and we would love to be a household name in not too distant future, with one or more of our products stocked in all UK supermarkets.
Thank you for talking to us! Bumblezest are about to raise funds, so please do get in contact if you are interested on hello@bumblezest.co.uk. You can find themon all social media @BumbleZest, and on their website www.bumblezest.co.uk.
If you’d like to see what connections Forward Fooding could offer your start-up, feel free to get in touch with us at info@forwardfooding.com! You can also add your company to our FMCG trends section on our platform to get free visibility within our corporate and investors’ network here.
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