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Problem
Consumer demand for functionality in beverage is strong and accelerating...
...but current offerings force too many trade-offs.
There is growing aspiration to be well, but people are stretched thin and modern life brings a lot of stress. Consumers are increasingly turning to food and beverage for their everyday wellbeing, especially for functional benefits.
But they don't want to sacrifice taste or health for function. It has to be good for you, functional and delicious.
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| For consumers — especially Millennials and Gen Z — current offerings force too many tradeoffs. |
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Functional beverage is a HUGE $48B segment ... in need of change. Current drinks like energy and sports drinks are typically loaded with sugar and calories, artificial ingredients and/or jitter-inducing levels of caffeine. Many new healthier functional drinks prioritize functional ingredients over taste.
Solution
Welcome to modern, healthy functional beverages that actually taste good
Delicious, good-for-you, functional sparkling waters that support energy, immunity, hydration, focus and occasional stress.
Delivering what appeals most to Gen-Z and Millennials
18–34 year olds are more likely than older adults to to claim functional ingredient usage. (mintel)
Plant-Based / Good-For-You
- heywell leverages plants to solve everyday consumer problems like stress and immunity support through ingredients like herbs and adaptogens—a class of plant that helps our bodies find balance and adapt to stress.
- Non-GMO, gluten-free, dairy-free, vegan, and made with organic ingredients
- Naturally low in calories (10–15 calories) and sugar (0–2 grams sugar) with no artificial OR added sugars
Occasion-focused
- Gen Z and Millennials are more occasion focused than previous generations. They'd rather understand what a product DOES for them vs focus on specific ingredients. (New Hope)
- heywell leads with functionality consumers seek: energy, immunity, focus, stress and hydration.
- Refreshing and lightly carbonated, tart and sweet.
- Can't detect the functional ingredients — heywell tastes like sparkling water with a splash of juice.
Product
Made for modern life
Each made with a unique purpose
and led with functional benefit
- Created by beverage scientists and founders with backgrounds in beverage to build effective stacks of ingredients AND still deliver great taste. Use CODE: REPUBLIC for 20% off your first purchase.
- Made with well-researched ingredients including GRAS certified adaptogens, antioxidants, super herbs and organic caffeine: schisandra, ashwagandha, l-theanine, amla berry, lemon balm, organic caffeine from green coffee beans, magnesium, potassium and pink Himalayan sea salt.
- Ingredient education on packaging makes it simple and easy to understand.
Traction
heywell is on track to deliver $1M in revenue in 2022 and $3.5M in 2023
* Click here for important information regarding Financial Projections which are not guaranteed.
heywell is outpacing the fast-growing category!
heywell tripled volume growth in 2021. With only 3% ACV (retail distribution), heywell is outperforming the US Natural Energy + Functional Beverage category (and big key competitors!) in the Natural Enhanced channel, where early adopters shop
... And catching on:
heywell has received high-impact recognition and press...
- 2022 EXPO WEST NEXTY Award finalist for best new beverage of the year, the leading organization in the natural products industry.
- Finalist in BevNet's New Beverage Showdown, the leading competition in the beverage industry.
- Incredible PR coverage:
.... and an audience of 'obsessed' fans.
Customers
Growing retail distribution with key customers
heywell can be found in influential accounts including Foxtrot, Erewhon, Central Market, Plum Market and Fairway.
- heywell is a TOP SELLER in Foxtrot Market
- In Erewhon, heywell ranks in the top 10 among single-serve beverage soda/carbonated drinks
- Average velocity is 5-12 per store/per SKU/per week and 12–18+ units in specialty retail
heywell just secured new distribution in Life Time Fitness, Beyond Juice, Earth Fare, Mother's, and Metropolitan Market.
heywell is distributed with the three largest natural food distributors in the country: Pod Foods, UNFI and KeHE.
- UNFI: heywell was elected to the prestigious UNFI UPNext Program that grows emerging brands
- Pod Foods Distributing: heywell is the top 4 beverage brand and top 6 overall brand NATIONALLY
- KeHE: DIVERSEtrade supplier
Delivering strong velocity
in e-comm and fast delivery channels
heywell is a top performer in these important channels:
... and receives strong reviews with a 4.9 out of 5 stars on Amazon.com.
Business model
Omni-channel strategy will fuel our future
Our omni-channel approach builds brand awareness and credibility, and will be key to our future growth.
Brick & mortar still accounts for 89% of total U.S. grocery sales, so that's where our focus is. And while retail remains our top priority to scale, high growth and emerging channels—like fast delivery service and e-commerce—are important to drive trial and awareness with very influential, early-adopting consumers.
- 35% of US households now rely on e-commerce for groceries and projected to grow by 29% from 2020-2024. (bringg)
- By 2030, it's estimated that there will be one micro-fulfillment center for every 10 grocery stores. Companies like gopuff and getir have each recently raised over $1B in capital. (food logistics, tech crunch)
Market
$52.2M opportunity from gaining just 1%
of the Natural Energy + Functional Bev subsegment
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US sales within this subsegment growing at +24.6%
The $48B Functional Bev segment is huge and growing at 6.6%. 1% share of this segment is a $480M opportunity. heywell is focussing on the fastest growing sub-segment, Natural Energy + Functional—where 1% is $52.2M opportunity.
Adaptogens are a projected to be a behemoth $23.4B category by 2030—mostly available in powder or pill form today. heywell will make adaptogens more accessible and easier to incorporate into every day life.
Competition
Clear competitive
advantage
heywell delivers healthy function
and flavor as it outpaces competitors.
heywell is disrupting and outperforming the $48 Billion functional beverage category, delivering high velocity and strong $s versus other functional and sparkling drinks.
Vision and strategy
Building an evergreen platform for functional wellness
Heywell has created a flexible brand platform meant to meet consumers' emerging and sustaining functional needs. Functional food and beverage is still a new category, and many brands have over-narrowed on one key ingredient (ie CBD) or function (only calm OR natural energy) which we believe can prohibit longevity.
By focusing on occasion- and wellness-accessibility first, heywell has the ability to leverage the platform to extend into new occasions, ingredients, and form innovation beyond beverage. Consumers give us permission to solve multiple occasions—indicated by our relatively equal sales performance across skus—and heywell will become known for providing delicious, occasion-based solutions for modern life.
Impact
Led by our mission
Core to our mission: 1% of sales to nonprofits that advocate inclusion.
heywell's mission of making wellness more simple and accessible for everyone every day is born out of the founders background.
Ashley and Britt have worked in male-led industries; and as senior vice presidents in marketing, they were often the only women around the conference table. The food and beverage industry continues to be male dominated, and just 2.3% of all venture capital funding goes to women-led start-ups. heywell is proud to be a WBENC certified women-owned business, and strives to give back to a community that has supported them on their journey by partnering with other women and minority owned businesses for things like PR, production, sales, procurement and creative development.
Making sure all consumers feel welcome is table stakes in 2022. No matter how you look, who you love, or how you feel about wellness, all are welcome here. We all aspire to a life well-lived—including a healthy mind and body. However, some consumers can feel disconnected from an industry that is appealing but exclusive and inaccessible.
It started with our name: heywell is meant to be a simple invitation to wellness. From representation, through product development and programming, heywell is inclusive and inspirational, vs. exclusive and aspirational. We give 1% of our sales to nonprofits that advocate for inclusion, and give consumers the option to donate on our website as well. While our donations change depending on what is going on in the word, heywell currently supports the National Diversity Council, the NAACP, the Equality Federation Institute, and Asian Americans Advancing Justice.
Funding
Raised $1M+ to date
heywell has raised more than $1M with the help of friends and family and a women-led VC. We are also in talks with the incubator teams at two large CPG companies.
Our product is in-market, reaching influential consumers, delivering strong trailing twelve month sales, and outpacing the fast growing functional beverage category!
Founders
Ashley Selman and Britt Dougherty have 25 combined years of CPG/beverage industry experience as senior executives with backgrounds in brand strategy, brand management, white space identification and innovation.
Ashley is recognized for helping lead the Blue Moon Brewing Company business to the #1 craft brand in the U.S., and built the brand’s first standalone brewery in Denver. Britt has been recognized as one of Advertising Age’s Women to Watch, and was selected to the 2017 Brand Innovators Women to Watch.
