Wicked Sister’s branding evokes cheeky, playful, happy childhood memories, but founder and CEO Paul Polly admits he always sets “impossible goals” for his team, which is why the company has grown so quickly.
Polly has a team of 35 production and admin staff who work out of their new, state-of-the-art manufacturing plant in Ingleburn in Sydney, plus 70 reps on the road selling and merchandising Wicked Sister into supermarkets across Australia, New Zealand and most recently Hong Kong – one of the first steps in the company’s Asian expansion strategy.
Not being able to find rice pudding like his grandmother used to make, Polly “took a punt and invested [his] life savings in a factory in Bankstown”. It was the birth of Wicked Sister.
It took him a year to develop a recipe, which he then presented to Woolworths at the end of 2008.
Wicked Sister was launched at Woolworths in 2009 with two lines: an old school-style rice pudding with cinnamon on top, and a chocolate rice pudding.
In 2012, Wicked Sister went national, and it is now also ranged at Coles across the country.
From two trial products in Woolworths, Wicked Sister now has a 40 per cent market share of Woolworths’ chilled premium dessert category, and Polly has hopes for it to be the number-one dairy dessert brand in Australia.
