Emma Thackray is co-founder of Hip Pop, a challenger drinks brand founded in 2019.
Brewed in Manchester, Hip Pop produces health drinks and has a ‘gut loving’ range of vegan-friendly, low-sugar kombucha and living sodas.
The brand has recently been selected for Co-op’s newly introduced ‘Apiary’ accelerator programme, alongside nine other purpose-led brands including Dr. Wills, Pleese Freezecakes, The Jolly Hogg and Brewgooder.
The accelerator programme is open to both new and existing suppliers to support their brand development, providing participants with learning opportunities including
masterclasses and mentor networking, Category Buyer access and support, plus admission to Co-op’s Gift to Give programme where larger suppliers provide a
helping hand to support smaller-scale businesses.
Here, Emma Thackray takes us behind the brand and into the world of Hip Pop…
What does your brand do in a nutshell?
Hip Pop is the alternative beverage brand that’s bringing a little bit of rebellion to the gut health game. We are a force for good – producing the tastiest functional soft drinks on the planet!
Based on a farm in the heart of Cheshire, I founded Hip Pop in 2019 with my friend and business partner Kenny Goodman. What started as a passion project creating homemade fermented drinks quickly turned into a thriving business after experiencing the results and exploring the booming functional drinks market.
Fast forward a few years and Hip Pop is quickly becoming THE go-to functional soft drinks brand with no compromise on taste. Our gut loving range of vegan-friendly, low-calorie and non-artificial kombucha and living sodas “taste good and do good” – they are made using 100% natural ingredients and no nasty artificial sweeteners or stevia, offering a mass-market approach to tackling gut health.
Can you bring us up to date with the company’s latest performance and headcount numbers?
Our focus is to make Hip Pop accessible to the masses. This is why we are working closely with the UK’s national retailers – Sainsbury’s, M&S, Co-op and many more – to make Hip Pop available across all corners of the country. We are also focusing on improving growth through online sales and subscriptions. With our increase in online revenue totalling 95% YOY (to 16th September 2024), our subscriptions have also increased over the last 12 months with over 2,300 active subscribers.
We’ve also made huge steps in the retail and grocery space. In June 2023, we signed our biggest supermarket deal yet with one of the ‘big six’ and added 280 Sainsbury’s stores to our list of stockists. We will also be expanding our range with existing stockists as we make our products visible to millions more consumers across the country.
This two-pronged physical and online strategy has so far supported excellent sustainable growth for the business in its opening years of trading, and the expansion of current channels is set to only consolidate already impressive growth.
Finally, we are proud to reach the spot of the fastest-growing soft drink brand in the UK. Earlier this year, Hip Pop became the fastest growing brand in its carbonates category allowing us to reach more people who are looking to prioritise their gut health.
What key factors have contributed to your recent growth?
Over the last 18 months, we’ve invested heavily in creating an experienced, passionate and knowledgeable team of investors and board members who are regularly inputting both time and money into the business.
Members include a previous CEO of Tesco and a founder of Innocent Drinks. These investors are working with the brand directly and providing crucial support, targets and goals to ensure Hip Pop is on track to continue its expansion across the UK and beyond.
We’ve also enlisted the help of the BBC’s Kate Goodman, a food and drinks presenter and wine connoisseur whose team “taste tests” every product before being put to market – something that is unrivalled in our field.
At the core of the business, our hand-picked team of expert brewers are responsible for creating a fantastic product that is the foundation of our success.
How do you differentiate your brand from competitors in the market?
‘Functional’ drinks have often been a niche when it comes to more exotic and unique flavours. Whilst these are delicious and remain relevant in the modern drinks market, there’s a gap for those who want and need gut-health support – and to be able to get it in a more traditional and accessible package.
Our aim is to be a force for good in the UK carbonated drinks market, creating gut-healthy, functional products that are net-positive for consumers and much healthier natural options compared to other traditional sodas on the market. Also, as the no/low trend continues to climb, we’re seeing an increasing demand for innovative non-alcoholic alternatives.
Our entire range of apple cider vinegar-based sodas are the first of their kind to offer consumers a truly beneficial soft drink – they’re functional, low in sugar, high in fibre and 100% natural. Not only do our products offer vital gut-health support, but they also eliminate sweeteners and unnatural ingredients – positioning them as the market’s premier healthy soft drink.
How do you cultivate a positive and productive company culture?
From top to bottom, Hip Pop is supported by enthusiastic and educated employees and a leadership team that is dedicated to providing our customers with the best products possible.
At the core of the business, our hand-picked team of expert brewers are responsible for creating a fantastic product that is the foundation of our success. We’re also making our sales team a key focus to enable us to continue to scale and make key progress towards our goals for supermarket/grocery expansion in the near future. This has opened numerous exciting doors to nationwide business growth and development, neatly summarised by our ambition to quadruple our revenue year on year.
Hip Pop is poised to go from an exciting disruptor to a mainstream alternative in the soft drinks market. This has not only been achieved through innovative product development, but also our passionate team of experts providing priceless insight and excellent long-term strategy.
What’s the most important part of the company’s marketing mix?
Our proposition is to give the world great tasting drinks that happen to be healthy – an alternative to your traditional sugar or sweetener-filled pop. We continue to invest in our product, ensuring only the best ingredients go into our drinks.
Last year, Hip Pop was awarded a total of five stars from Great Taste – the world’s largest and most trusted food and drink accreditation scheme. Our Tropical Peach Living Soda received two stars, whilst the Ginger & Yuzu Kombucha, Gut Lovin’ Lemonade and Cherry & Blackberry CBD Kombucha (Hip Pop’s first CBD drink to launch in Sainsbury’s) each received one star, positioning Hip Pop as an official Great Taste producer.
Our commitment to delivering exceptional quality and taste in every product we create has resulted in us winning another two stars from Great Taste this year – this time for our Strawberry & Pineapple Kombucha.
For this reason, our key marketing tactic is to get a can in people’s hands – whether it’s through our retail distribution, partnerships or events. Once people try Hip Pop, they are hooked, and we are proud that 64% of our online customers make repeated purchases.
To what extent does the company use the support of external agencies?
The business is supported by enthusiastic and educated employees and leadership teams who are dedicated to giving our customers the best products possible which has opened numerous exciting doors to nationwide business growth and development.
To further our growth and online presence, we’re broadening our focus to include Amazon. Having partnered with Amazon agency MINSTERfb last year, we’re anticipating a sizable increase in Amazon sales throughout 2024 to rival the success of our own web sales channels.
Where do you hope the brand will be in two years’ time?
We have a brand-new brewery in the heart of Manchester to facilitate increased demand. This has greatly increased our production capacity whilst maintaining the agility to allow our team to be innovative. Although this is where our wonderful drinks originate, we are also starting to engage with outsourcing partners across the UK to grow our capacity further to aid our fast growth.
Continuing to build on our presence and commercial visibility will be key to sustaining our already impressive growth. We’re anticipating that our expanding list of retailers will bring Hip Pop to the forefront of consumers’ minds when searching for functional, healthy soft drinks with the ability to back up long-term increased demand when the full network across our operations is live.
When it comes to our staff, we’re also making the sales team a key focus to enable us to continue to scale and make key progress towards our goals for supermarket/grocery expansion in the near future. This is neatly summarised by our ambition to quadruple our revenue year on year.
We’re also in the process of securing brand partnerships with businesses that align with our brand values to broaden our awareness in new circles with engaged customer bases in an effort to further develop sales leads.
Hip Pop is poised to go from an exciting disruptor to a mainstream alternative in the soft drinks market. This has been achieved through innovative product development, a passionate team of experts providing priceless insight, and excellent long-term strategy.
