One year after brand investment firm Factory acquired an equity stake in Roar Organic, the company is using a redesigned and reformulated RTD line to deepen its presence at natural retailers while it takes on ecommerce with its similarly refreshed powder mixes.
Pennsylvania-based Factory takes equity stakes in food and beverage brands and provides shared resources to give them an advantage in the market. In addition to Roar, the group’s portfolio includes Pipcorn, Honey Stinger, Partake, Mikey’s and Stuffed Puffs.
Factory became a majority investor in Roar last spring and Alex Galindez, who worked with Factory on research prior to making an investment, was named as CEO in May 2020. Galindez’s prior experience includes serving as CEO of energy drink RUNA, general manager of BluePrint at The Hain Celestial Group, and marketing positions at Facebook, Univision and Burger King.
According to Galindez, Roar most directly works with Factory’s operations and finance teams, including to negotiate better freight services rates, as well as working with the firm’s in-house design team. However, she said in Roar’s case its go-to-market strategy is determined individually by the brand and executed by its own sales and marketing teams.
“It allows us to build the brand without distraction, because some of the things that could completely consume you are being provided by Factory teams,” Galindez said.
While doing research on Roar for Factory, Galindez said she found that although the brand had been marketed as “Gatorade for women,” its consumers were more drawn to its high vitamin content. Seeking to emphasize its wellness benefits, Roar now has 100% daily value of vitamins A, B5, B6, B12, C and E. The reformulated product also upped the “juiciness” of the flavor profiles, Galindez said, allowing it to better compete against brands with “artificial tasting” flavors.
The refreshed line features four flavors: Blueberry Acai, Mango Clementine, Georgia Peach and Cucumber Watermelon. Each 18 oz. bottle contains 2-3 grams of sugar.
Instead of tackling Gatorade, the new Roar is gearing up to perform as an organic, low sugar take on brands such as Bai and Vitaminwater — the latter of which Galindez herself helped build as a regional marketing manager from 2003 to 2006.
The company’s market research also revealed that rather than using Roar as a pre- or post-workout drink, consumers were drinking it at all times of the day as a general refreshment beverage, Galindez said. That insight went into the new packaging design, which is intended to be speak to anytime use occasions.
“Our old packaging was very much kind of oozing isotonic and Gatorade/Powerade, and that’s just not who we want to be,” Galindez said. “So if you take a look at the brand now, you can see that it’s a beverage that you would drink all day.”
In 2018, Roar raised $5.6 million in a funding round led by AF Ventures (formerly AccelFoods). At the time, the brand had six flavors and was available in over 3,000 doors nationwide.
The new products are currently rolling out to Whole Foods stores in the Mid-Atlantic and will launch in Sprouts next month. In October, the brand expanded nationwide into over 6,300 7-Eleven stores and is also chainwide in Albertsons-Safeway stores, and has placement in retail chains such as Wegmans, Natural Grocers, The Fresh Market, Fresh Thyme, King’s, Gelson’s, Bristol Farms and Mother’s Market.
While Wegmans was “inherited distribution” prior to Factory’s acquisition of the brand, Galindez said Roar opted to mostly bypass the natural channel but is now focused on the space. Wegmans is one of the brand’s highest velocity accounts and she noted the brand aggressively chased Sprouts in order to gain a stronger footprint in the channel. The company, she said, is now gearing up for category resets in Q2 and has prepared a field marketing campaign that includes in-store display racks and coolers.
“It’s a bit of a back to the basics,” she said. “This is an organic product, it is gluten free, vegan and keto friendly. So this year is really about just going ahead and cementing our foundation in natural, which is where our most naturally inclined customer is going to be looking for an organic offering in year one, and then start expanding from there.”
In addition to RTD, Roar also revamped its powder stick line, updating the packaging and putting the sales focus for the line on the ecommerce channel. Galindez said the company is in the process of reformulating the products and will launch the updated line, with similar vitamin fortification to the RTD, in Q3 of this year.