“A wild ride” is how Naked Life CEO and founder David Andrew describes the two years since he created the range of soft drinks free from sugar, artificial flavouring and colouring. This article first appeared in the May 2019 edition of Food & Drink Business.
As an entrepreneur and former general manager of a large sugar replacement company, Andrew could see a market opportunity and took it. He says: “A lot of Australia is just catching on to the sugar-free trend. We’ve come a long way in the last three or four years with the availability of sugar-free products that don’t taste horrible and aren’t full of artificial everything.”
The soft drinks are a proprietary blend of 100 per cent natural Stevia extract, monk fruit extract and erythritol. They are also free from phosphoric acid, which is a key difference from other colas and natural soft drinks, Andrew says.
“It’s been a bit of a wild ride trying to make it all happen on a shoestring budget, but it’s been a great experience and it’s been really validating to know that the market is starting to respond.”
Naked Life is available in Woolworths Metro stores, independent supermarkets, hospitals, universities as well as health stores across Australia.
Andrew says he was “really impressed” with the Woolworths Metro team as they were the first big supermarket to take them on. “They loved the taste of our product. They’d seen another couple of products that didn’t have a significant taste profile so it really just went from there. They were very progressive and moved very quickly.”
