The competition in the juice and smoothie marketplace, already fierce, intensified further before Emma and Tom\u2019s even launched.<\/p>\n
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\u201cNudie launched the weekend I had the idea for Emma and Tom\u2019s,\u201d says Griffith. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t a deal breaker as we took a year to set up rather than three months. I\u2019d walk around, look into shops and think \u2018Lucky Nudie.\u2019 But I also thought \u2018Bring it on.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u201cNudie is very different to us. They focus on the major supermarkets, while we focused on the high-end trade.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u201cCustomers who tried Nudie were very enthusiastic about Emma and Tom\u2019s. We\u2019re a fun brand with a healthy angle to it. If you aren\u2019t confident about what you can offer, you just run away and hide.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Finding a point of difference<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Griffith says that Emma and Tom\u2019s has several points of difference \u2013 the unadulterated amount of fruit, the above-average size of the bottle, the premium price point and a shorter pasteurisation process that gives the product a short, three-week shelf life but, crucially, a claim to greater freshness than its peers.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Convinced the product would fare well, Welsh and Griffith put in $500,000 of their own money to start the business. They drew up a \u201chit list\u201d of high-end delis in Melbourne to target.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThe retailers were like us, in a way. They were entrepreneurial and they knew what they wanted,\u201d says Griffith. \u201cWe didn\u2019t spend money willy nilly. There was a level of desperation there to make the product saleable. Within a few months, we were selling our minimum order.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWe launched in September and by Christmas we had 400 customers, which was a nice effort. We sponsored a lot of events and retained PR agency to generate publicity for us.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Welsh recalled the initial push in an interview with SmartCompany in 2007: \u201cWe started walking the pavements, presenting every shop with a six-pack holder and asked them to taste it, returning in three days.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWe focused on selling into stores owned by people like ourselves. That way we could have direct interface with the customer and it was good brand association.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWe also gave away free samples at amateur sporting events such as fun runs, ocean events and gallery openings. It was difficult to guess the results but we felt that if we gave away juice to 2,000 runners we knew that every single one of them had tasted it; if we put an ad in the paper it was far less targeted.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Building the brand<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n In order to get into more locations, and to increase the chances of being picked up by consumers, Emma and Tom\u2019s has greatly expanded its range in recent years.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Adding to its portfolio of eight juices, the brand has now moved into bottled water and energy bars.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve got to keep innovating,\u201d insists Griffith. \u201cWe\u2019re a bit like the English rugby team used to be \u2013 we have to do everything 1% better than everyone else.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve got eight juices \u2013 anymore and you cannibalise yourself. In July last year we brought in the raw fruit and nut bars as we realised people might buy them with a coffee. We get people emailing us asking where they can get them.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cOur sales team upsell the water. It\u2019s marginal sales and it\u2019s ambient too. You always want to sell what you haven\u2019t got and it\u2019s easy to lose focus, so we took a long time deciding how to add to the range.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWe have focus groups and we trust ourselves a bit when we do something new. There\u2019s not a great cost in launching something \u2013 the challenge is getting out there.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cYou have to be ubiquitous to do what we do. We\u2019re in 2,500 stores in Australia. If you\u2019re in a couple of hundred, it\u2019s not enough to sustain you.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Future growth<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Emma and Tom\u2019s sales grew by 20% last year and, with a bit of luck, Griffith feels that trend can continue. He calls the brand a fast-growing \u201cminnow\u201d in a $800 million market. Following successful forays into Sydney, Adelaide and even France, the aim is to increase the brand\u2019s presence beyond 40 supermarkets.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n While Griffith is sanguine over the future, he is adamant that the company\u2019s progress wouldn\u2019t have been possible without the partnership with Welsh.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s great having a business partner,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s a great comfort. I would\u2019ve hated doing it by myself. It\u2019s great to have someone there to disagree with you and someone to enjoy it with.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The competition in the juice and smoothie marketplace, already fierce, intensified further before Emma and Tom\u2019s even launched. \u201cNudie<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58734,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,23,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45460"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}