New Beverage Showdown 23 - Semi-finals: Berry Bissap

Speaker 1 [00:14] Next up on the showdown is Akua Kyerematen Nettey, who is the founder of Berry Bissap. Come on up. How are you? Just choose any mic and please keep 9 your timer.

Aquia Chermatanete [00:30] Hello everyone. My name is Aquia Chermatanete and I am the founder of Monro Berry Bissop, West African spiced hibiscus drinks. At Berry Bissop, our mission is to introduce a centuries-old West African beverage that is refreshing, better for you, and full of flavor. Our beverages are made with organically grown hibiscus, indigenous West African spices, slightly sweetened with organic raw cane sugar, and infused with fresh fruit in three of our four skews. So what is bissap, you may ask. It's a hibiscus drink that has been around for centuries as far as pre-colonization, originating from the Senegambia Empire and has become a beverage staple throughout all of West Africa. Growing up in a Ghanaian home in Oklahoma, my mother would always make batches of bissap, and we would love and enjoy it super chilled with ice. I fell in love with this unique flavor tart, sweet and spicy at the same time, and we made our beverages in a way that it's still tart and flavorful without so much sugar. We source our hibiscus and indigenous spices directly from our partner farmers in northern region of Ghana. Most of our partner farmers are women and family run. So what makes the hibiscus flower so special? This amazing flower is a superfood packed with amazing benefits such as vitamin A and C, antioxidants, polyphenols, and much more. We launched in 2019 in a few farmers' markets and supermarkets in the Hudson Valley of New York, and we're proud to say that we're in over 130 stores, including top retailers in select Whole Foods, Mom's Organic Market, and recently Target. We believe Barry Bissab has an advantage over other hibiscus drinks on the market by providing a refreshing tart and lightly sweetened beverage that is not made from concentrate that is mission driven, stays true to our identity and culture, and will become the leader in this new emerging beverage category in the US. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 [02:29] Nicely done. Um, you know, we keep hearing that, uh, consumers are looking for more global flavors, more, uh, you know, ethnic flavors, and this seems to fit the bill for sure, um, but how's it taste, Brittany? It's

Speaker 3 [02:41] delicious, and what I love about this, this, um, bottle is that because it's a twist top and you can actually open it and it's wide enough, you actually get the aroma coming through too, so it's multi-sensory, right? You're tasting something that's delicious, you're getting a little bit of that scent of the spice with it. It was an outstanding drink.

Speaker 1 [02:57] Great. Allison, you know, the functional benefits seem to be important as well. Did you get the sense that this was a, you know, in some ways a functional beverage as well from the packaging you saw?

Speaker 4 [03:06] Um, I don't know from the packaging, but what it screamed was premium, so I think to her point it tasted fresh, it tasted amazing, it felt heavy in your hand. It, it, it looked premium, it tasted premium, so I think that they could demand a little bit higher of a price point, but I think over time they'll have to figure a way to bring that down.

Speaker 1 [03:25] David, uh, potential is really important, right? Do you see a scalable, uh, future for this brand?

Speaker 5 [03:30] Yeah, definitely, um, just on, on the point of premiumness, there are a lot of cues, premium cues here, whether if it's the provenance where the, where, where it comes from the. Packaging, um, the viz ID, everything about it does scream premium, and right now premium brands are performing well, so, um, as far as, uh, scale and profitability, this does have a ton of potential.

Speaker 1 [03:55] Mhm, um, everyone has talked about how beautiful the packaging is, how it screams premium, um, you know, where it sits on the shelf is really important too, Jackie, does this stand out on the shelf in a way that's going to get the consumer, entice the consumer to pull it, pull it down?

Speaker 6 [04:08] Yeah, I think it does a great job. I love the color, the pops of color. The bottom is clear with the flavors, um, the imagery of the ingredients. It's really great. I think someone will pick it up and on the side it also gives you a little bit more information about BSA and the sourcing, which I think is a big part of the story.

Speaker 1 [04:27] Outstanding.