Managing Director and Co-Founder of Bae Juice, Tim O’Sullivan spoke to Convenience World magazine about the beginnings of the pouched beverage, how they’ve built their brand and the challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic has thrown their way.
What is Bae Juice, and why is it unique?
Our product is 100% Korean pear juice and has enzymes that assist with hangovers. Pretty amazing for those two items to be in the same sentence and with backing from CSIRO we believe this could be one of the only natural products that can assist with alcohol metabolism. Our 120ml squeeze sachets to help guide consumers to drink it on the go, not sip before a big night out and the feedback on our branding has been reward for hard effort.
Can you talk us through the launch of Bae Juice?
We first launched Bae Juice in January 2019. It was one of the best days of our lives. We had worked for over 1 year to source the 100% Korean pear juice, structure and business, build a brand and have it arrive to Melbourne.
Our mission was to get the product into as many people’s hands as possible. Once our shipment of 50,000 units arrived, we decided to put it to our Bae Juice Instagram (@baejuiceaus) that if anyone wanted to try the product in Melbourne, we were willing to drop some samples off.
In the next 3 days, we drove over 30 hours each and hand delivered over 2500 units to try to build some hype around our new brand, and people began sharing pictures and messaging our page, it wasn’t planned but pure excitement drove the idea!
From then, we reach out to our networks and began stocking our product in bottle shops, cafes, and a number of independent grocers. Luckily with our fascinating journey and trending product, we had some incredible features from: The Daily Mail, Urbanlist, and some minor features in The Age and Herald Sun, which took our brands to the next stage.
How has your company been impacted by the current COVID-19 pandemic?
Our vision for Bae Juice is to become a lifestyle brand, due to its multi uses. We had a number of events planned to assist with our goals that have all been cancelled, so we have had to adjust and put our ideas on hold which has been unfortunate, as we have some solid momentum at the moment. Other than our brand awareness and event collaborations, it hasn’t effected our overall operation too heavily.
When the COVID-19 pandemic crisis began, did you ever anticipate that it would reach to such a high level, and would have an impact on your business?
Absolutely not, we were planning the next few events with Together Events in Melbourne and taking on new collaborations to help boost our brand awareness, so it was a massive shock to have unfolded so quickly and impact what was a going to be an exciting Feb/March for us.
What do you have planned for the future?
We are currently working on 2 new products. With the current circumstances and health being such a focus, we will have our hero product, the Korean pear added with a traditional South East Asian herb, to help boost immunity. We’re excited to develop our overall brand and continue to bring new niche, health products to Australia that we feel will excel in the Australian market and be beneficial for consumers.
