We’re currently living in difficult times – which is perhaps a great understatement. There’s nothing we love more than seeing people and businesses examine these dark times, and make the absolute most out of them.
Bae Juice – a product bright in packaging and in its purpose too, spoke with Retail World magazine on their beginnings, on their now, and how they are tackling every challenge that has come their way during the COVID-19 pandemic. Managing Director and Co-Founder of Bae Juice, Tim O’Sullivan spilled the juice on this exciting products journey.
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!
Where is this product stocked?
We are currently in over 100 stores across Australia. We are predominantly focused in Melbourne as we are based here with over 45 IGA’s and other independants. We are excited to branch out heavily into the liquor retail space.
What inspired you to launch this product?
Spending time in Korea with my girlfriends’ friends and family was the core reason for stumbling across such an amazing product. Sumin’s friends often gave me pear juice whilst drinking to help my hangovers, they explained that the pear helps the effects of hangovers and their parents and friends all do it. It was almost common knowledge and after some research, it all made sense.
Inside the Korean pear is a property called DHM which speeds up the metabolism of alcohol resulting in lesser hangovers. So for me and the drinking culture in Australia combined with the huge health and wellness marketing we saw an ENORMOUS opportunity and haven’t looked back since.
How have you adapted to the challenges that have risen from COVID-19?
Our approach has been simple, and something we identified very early on. Liam my business partner noticed all the independent stores had managers working most days during the pandemic, and he saw the opportunity to begin pitching our product to the right person. This resulted in us getting into 40 new IGA stores over the last 4 weeks, which has bolstered our distribution in Melbourne.
Online we have tackled new ideas like same day delivery, competitions, discounts and up skilling ourselves to do our online advertising in house, saving crucial funds.
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.
Head to baejuiceaus.com.au to learn more!