In the war on sugar, soda has been public enemy number one for years. Now, New York-based startup United Sodas of America is looking to clean up the category’s image with a brand-driven, better-for-you line of low calorie soft drinks. After posting 10x growth online in its first year, the brand is currently expanding into retail with an ambitious 12 SKU lineup.
United Sodas of America launched direct-to-consumer last year with a full line of flavors including Blackberry Jam, Cherry Pop, Extra Peach, Gingery Ale, Lemon Verbena, Orange Nectarine, Pear Elderflower, Sour Blueberry, Strawberry Basil, Toasted Coconut, White Grape and Young Mango. Each flavor is available in 12-packs of 12 oz. cans for $34.99, as well as variety packs with one can of each SKU and theme packs composed of three complimentary flavors at the same price point.
According to co-founder and CEO Marisa Zupan — who previously worked as a corporate strategy consultant for companies in the beverage, beauty and fashion industries, including The Coca-Cola Company, Nestlé, Pernod Ricard — the idea for United Sodas came after seeing numerous beverage companies focus on creating alternatives to CSDs that were positioned as “anti-soda,” framing sugary soft drinks as an “enemy” that had failed to innovate and bore the responsibility for obesity and other health issues.
In development for over two years, United Sodas of America is now attempting to “improve the relationship” between consumers and soft drinks, Zupan said. Each 12 oz. can contains 30 calories and is sweetened with 6 grams of organic cane sugar and 7 grams of organic erythritol. Everything about the brand, from its bright, minimalist packaging to its “aspirational” name is intended to communicate a new, better-for-you direction for the category.
“I realized that perhaps the opportunity is not in creating an alternative to soda, it’s simply to redefine what soda can be,” Zupan said. “Because Americans really do have a nostalgic love for soda in their hearts, it’s just that they haven’t had a soda to fall back in love with again.”
In developing the branding and the product, Zupan said a core value of United Sodas is variety. Whereas most soda brands are built around a core SKU and then builds off of it with a limited number of flavor variations, United Sodas developed 12 flavors from the outset that were all presented on equal footing. Though she acknowledged that launching with a dozen flavors was, to say the least, unconventional, Zupan said she drew heavily from “out of category insights.”
The brand’s go-to-market strategy was inspired by the beauty, fashion, yogurt and snack food spaces where large portfolios are more commonplace, while the design aimed to visually communicate its theme of “variety” through bright, rainbow colored packaging.
The minimalist packaging design, she said, is intended to make it “a frictionless experience to choose the flavor that you want” and offers a “chameleon” effect that gives United Sodas a broad range of use occasions from an everyday drink to a fashion statement at weddings and other special occasions.
United Sodas currently employs four full time team members, including COO Kate Reeder and VP of operations Sara Koepsel. David Tsiang, a co-founder of venture portfolio company BeyondBrands, serves part time as the company’s Head of Finance (Zupan noted United Sodas does not have a formal relationship with BeyondBrands).
The brand aimed to grab attention quickly by marketing simultaneously to both consumers and buyers, Zupan said. Last summer, in an unusual move for an early stage startup, the company launched a billboard marketing campaign in New York. While the campaign was effective in drawing consumers to the brand’s website, it also attracted the attention of buyers and helped the company begin a soft rollout into retail that is now beginning to ramp up.
“It’s not every day that you see a beverage billboard for a brand you’ve really never heard of and sort of comes out of nowhere, and that’s very intriguing to people who follow the beverage industry and want to know everything about it,” she said.
The products are now available in select markets, including New York, Southern California and Texas, and is primarily in natural channel and specialty chains such as Erewhon, Central Market, Plum Market and MOM’s Organic Market.
Zupan said the company has a mixture of broadline and DSD distribution to support the growth and is now “growing concentrically” in these regions, based around the initial chain launches. As well, United Sodas has partnered with grocery tech company Pod Foods, which provides in-store sales data and analytics from specific retailers.
For a variety-driven, aesthetic-minded brand, United Sodas rollout into brick-and-mortar has required retailers to offer a sizable share of shelf space to the products. While some accounts have brought in all 12 SKUs to start, Zupan admitted that it is a big ask for many stores and the brand has developed eight flavor and six flavor sets that are tailored to the best selling flavors.
“It’s a different way to sell,” she said. “It’s kind of like we’re casting the shelf, if you will, instead of just saying ‘here are the top sellers, take them.’”