The Keys To Building An Iconic Brand? A Bit Of 'Luck' & And A Long-Term Vision.

0:10Hello friends, I'm Ray Latif and you're listening to the number one podcast for anyone building a business in food or beverage, Taste Radio. This episode features an interview with Luke Bowes, the founder of Lucky Saint, a fast-growing UK-based brand of non-alcoholic beer. Luke Bowes launched Lucky Saint in 2018, but the brand's future, 100 years from now and beyond, has always been top of mind. The leading dedicated non-alcoholic beer brand in the UK, Lucky Saint is sold in over 10 ,000 points of distribution in the country, including more than 1 ,000 pubs and restaurants. That number includes its own bar, aptly named The Lucky Saint, which is located in London and operates at the base of a building that also houses the company's office.

1:00Last year, Lucky Saint raised a 10 million pound Series A round that included funding from VC firm Jam Jar Investments. Led by a mission to become, quote, the world's defining alcohol-free brand, Lucky Saint is resonating with both sober and moderate drinking consumers, according to Luke. A key theme of the company's marketing and communication strategy is inclusivity, whereby the quality of the beer and its appeal as a beverage for anyone who isn't drinking are the lead messages. In the following interview, Luke talks about how his interest in entrepreneurship sparked the idea for Lucky Saint, and why he has a long-term vision for the brand.

1:41He also explains how the company incorporates consumer insights and data into its retail and buyer pitches, how he views Lucky Saint's role in the non-alcoholic beer category, and how he thinks about competing with strategically owned and aligned beer companies. Hey folks, it's Ray with Taste Radio. Right now, I'm honored to be sitting down with Luke Bowes, who is the founder of Lucky Saint. Luke, great to see you. Great to see you too. Good to have you here, Ray. Yeah, and thanks so much for having me and thanks so much for having the team. We're about T minus an hour and a half or so away from an event here at your amazing pub in London.

2:21Yeah, we're hosting a few folks in the area, food and beverage entrepreneurs, operators, et cetera. And you've provided a wonderful space for everyone to get together and sip some Lucky Saint and other libations, I think as well. Yeah, for sure. No, it's great to have everyone. And that's why we built a pub in the first place. So we could host people and make social connections. And yeah, it's an important part of our industry, I think. Yeah, I'm familiar with non-alcoholic bars or bars that are specifically pouring non-alcoholic drinks. I don't think I've heard of a brand that has its own bar, a non-alcoholic brand that has its own bar.

2:59Are you the first? Maybe the first in England? in terms of a regular bar that sells, you know, all drinks, alcoholic, non-alcoholic, you mean? Right. I guess that's true. You sell a variety of drinks, but as a non-alcoholic brand, you have your own pub. Yeah, it's a good question. I don't know the answer to it, but I think we're, I think we're the only one. Yeah. But it was always an important decision for us that we weren't building a non-alcoholic pub. Right. We were building a great pub and we'd have the office upstairs and then we could live out this kind of belief that the greatest reward of drinking is the social connection and you should be able to come to our pub and enjoy our hospitality whether you're drinking not drinking drinking a little bit when people come in are they surprised that you sell quote-unquote regular beer and other things like that there are some people who assume that it's going to be non-al but equally there's a whole bunch of people who come in here actually without even knowing that it's attached as a pub it's attached to a non-alcoholic beer brand the idea was always that it's a great local pub.

4:01Yeah, it's a great beer too. We've had samples in our office and you have a great branding. It just feels like you guys did a lot right. But let's back up for a second because before you have to do anything right, you have to have the idea, you have to have the business plan and you have to have the passion to follow on both. Talk to me about your interest in non-alc beer and why it became this important part of your life. I discovered or was like started thinking about non-alc beer actually in the context of starting my own business so I had this chance meeting with two founders of a technology business and I remember I was sitting with them and they were explaining to me this idea that they had around building a tech platform to change the face of retail and they were like wildly excited about this.

4:52And they had so much passion and so much belief in what they were building. And it was completely infectious. I sat across the table from them thinking, I need to be sitting in on that side of the table, I need to be sitting in a chair with, you know, and in a role that I'm as excited about as they are. Just the entrepreneurship bug? The entre, exactly. Yeah. And so it got me thinking about, well, you know, if I started a business, what would it be? And a few ideas came and went, but the idea of taking the most maligned and sort of hated part of the overall beer, like non-out beer, and bringing that to a place where it was something to be proud of, this idea of changing perceptions of the most hated part of the beer category, it just sort of got me emotionally.

5:42And what year was this? so this was idea was in 2016 my view on it was like on paper like non-alcohol beer what an amazing proposition for the right time for the right occasion for the right person like all of the beer experience minus the alcohol but in reality i wasn't even a consumer of alcohol-free beer and so i started thinking well i wonder you know why is that and i boiled it down to two things firstly there wasn't a beer in a bottle that was good enough to kind of bring me into the category and then secondly there wasn't a brand that made me feel positive about that choice i think the world's changed a lot now but if you go back you know six seven eight years you used to apologize if you're not drinking sure you meet someone you know on tuesday i'm i'm sorry or you feel out of place yeah yeah and so it really came about around this idea is i wonder if it'd be possible to change the way people feel about like not drinking and a little bit naively I thought well I wonder how hard it would be and then ended up spending the next two years working with six different breweries in three different countries trying to figure out how to brew great tasting non-alcoholic beer and that took me through the UK Belgium and then ultimately to Germany, where I managed to build a relationship with this incredible 450-year-old brewery who brew amazing lager in their own right, but also have the technology to brew non-alcoholic lager or non-alcoholic beer, and ended up, built this relationship and developed the beer with them.

7:32And we still brew our beer in Germany today. Not a bad place to brew beer. Well, it's the heart of particularly lager brewing. They are, like, hands down, I think, the best lager brewers in the world. And they have some incredible breweries over there. I've spoken with another founder in the space of non-alcoholic beer, and he had a similar idea. He's like, I'm going to do something that's never been done before, at least hasn't been done in the beer space, modern beer space, which is create a great tasting non-alcoholic beer. He got laughed out of every brewery and finally found someone that was willing to work with him.

8:10They made great beer. The question still remained, how am I going to sell it? How am I going to market this? Because public perception of non-alcoholic beer was that it was terrible. Nothing really tasted good. You know, you might as well just drink water. So was there a thirst, so to speak, for non-alcoholic beer in England the way it is today? Because again, there's a lot of interest and demand. it seems like in 2024, but 2018 or so. Did you launch in 20... Was it right in 2016 or...? No, no, no. So it took me two years. So then it was back end of 2018 when we launched. Actually, six years ago this month.

8:48When you started going to retail shops and to bars and said, hey, I have this really great tasting non-alcoholic beer, were you welcomed with open arms? Were you kicked on your way out? Or I mean, was it somewhere in between? Well, just one of those two things. Okay. but not consistently like it depends who you're talking to so there were absolutely people who believed in it and who saw the opportunity and understood the need to redefine quality within the category and then there were others who systematically said well i think the sort of one of the responses would be we don't sell any non-alcoholic beer so i don't see why we need to change anything or put Lucky Saint in the fridge.

9:34And sort of beg the question is, why are you not selling any non-alcoholic beer at the moment? Did you pick and choose your spots or did you just go make a blanket attempt to go after, you know, every place that you thought non-alcoholic beer could succeed? No, we were definitely choiceful about where we went and working with the most influential venues there's a sort of the classic model of building a drinks brand which is to work with generally like the most sort of high-end or influential venues we worked with and continue to work with you know lots of high-end but actually we've never been we think quality is something that runs through like it doesn't marry up necessarily with like premium or high-end venues it's just actually it's about finding the venues who want to serve the highest quality so that could be a burger joint or it could be a michelin star restaurant so we we spend as much as much time working with the 84 michelin star restaurants i think we work with now as we do with you know the best bits of casual dining and the best pubs when you're making that presentation how do you incorporate consumer insights into what you're talking about?

10:54Because on its own, you could say, hey, we have a great liquid. We have great branding. We have some traction. But what's, you know, the potential for this category? Why are consumers not only going to drink this today, but, you know, for the long term? Why should someone take a beer off their tap and put a Lucky Saint? Or why should they make space in their coolers for a Lucky Saint? You know, what kind of research, what kind of consumer insights do you incorporate into that pitch, if any at all yeah i guess there's quite a bit of data and insight the the single most powerful thing is taking an operator's own data and letting them see what the commercial impact of having lucky saint on their bar that's the most powerful thing so you know it's why we run you know we'll run trials in in groups of sites to greater level of understanding and so that they can then understand what the positive impact that Lucky Saint has on their P &L.

11:49I've talked to a bunch of founders in the alcohol-free space, whether it's beer spirits, wine, and I hear from a bunch of them that dry January, sober October, things like that get a lot of people interested in the space for the first time. If I'm being really honest, Luke, I kind of feel like we're hitting a ceiling with those months. I feel like people who are going to do them have done them or tried it and didn't like it. You know, how does that kind of marketing, how does that kind of groupthink and perspective impact your business? And, you know, do you still rely on it as being an important part of consumer adoption and getting folks aware of Lucky Saint?

12:36It's certainly a big moment in the year to drive trial for the category, but we know and we've seen you know there used to be certain spikes during the year around things like dry january and now consumption of non-alc beer throughout the year is much more aligned to consumption of overall beer which shows that we're kind of you know we're maturing as a category and it's just it's just falling in line so you know summer is bigger than january it used to be that january was the biggest month but it's not now it's you know summer will be much bigger as will Christmas. So I think you're right. The long-term success of the category is all around getting non-alcoholic beer into people's psyche and consciousness and getting them consuming it regularly.

13:23I always think for the category, the big opportunity is that when you walk into a pub, you tend to have a repertoire of drinks that you'll go to. And non-alcoholic beer is not in many people's repertoire because when you walk into a pub you're you know there's the instant pressure to make the order and actually if you haven't already you know kind of got it in your repertoire then you're probably not going to order it and so the big change that we can make for the category is to get more people having non-alc beer mentally available to them like more of the time. And when that happens, we'll start to see, I think, continued growth.

14:08Yeah, I was kind of shocked because a couple of good friends of mine came over here about a year ago and they had Sunday roasts. I'm like, oh, very nice. And, you know, I asked what they were drinking and they're drinking non-alquia. It might've been Lucky Saint, actually. And they were just overjoyed at, you know, the optionality they have now. You know, speaking of which I think there are a lot of brands that have come into this space since 2018. There are international conglomerates that have put a ton of money behind non-alc beer. There are upstart American brands, I think we can just mention Athletic, you know, that is already here in the UK.

14:47And I wonder for, you know, a brand like Lucky Saint, how you assess that competition, big, small and you know coming to the market in the context of your own growth strategy so there's two parts to this one is the i guess if we look at category and you know the category is still in a period of growth and establishing itself so you know particularly with the mainstream brands which are putting the most amount of marketing money behind the category that's only growing awareness and helping to do the job which i was just talking about like growing mental availability and you know if we can double triple quadruple the size of the category that's an overwhelmingly positive thing for for everyone and when you say we you're talking about everyone that's involved in the space yeah yeah i think that would be inherent in your answer i don't know why i even said that because it's not lucky saint on its known helping to create three four times growth of the category no yeah no no exactly the yeah the job is for the category as a whole and the power of those larger brands is you know is meaningful and then i guess there's the piece for sort of me as a as a founder in the space where you have to kind of rationalize and stay sane and you know i always think that for me this is and for lucky saint it's about really understanding what's our ambition what role do we want to play within the category and what's our job and remain super focused on that because no one is ever going to have a hundred percent share of a category but it's understanding and sort of winning within I guess the positioning that you're going after and the opportunity that you're going after for yourself it's interesting because if you look back five or six years ago non-alc beer was just non-alc beer but now and venues might stock one but now venues might stock two or three of different styles so they might stock a stout they might stock a pale ale and they might stock a lager you know even within five years you've had kind of almost like segmentation within the category so that's how i how i think about things and we have a you know our own our own ambitions and our own strategy.

17:05And, you know, we have to kind of focus on that. What is your ambition? The ambition is to build the world's defining alcohol-free brand. Today, we're only in the UK. I think for certain consumers, we are probably the first brand that they think about in the category. And that's amazing. But we'd like to, you know, continue to do that in the UK, but then also think about international as well. I noticed you didn't use the word beer when you said the leading alcohol-free brand, does that mean you're considering or you would consider other beverage alcohol analogs? So we've built a specialism in beer.

17:44And I think that's really important. Like the heritage of the way that we brew and the provenance of the beer and the love that goes. And we built an enormous amount of credibility in that space. Actually to go and sort of suddenly go off and do a wine or a spirit, I think would be quite difficult. so I didn't say beer but it's hard to imagine us doing anything other than beer I totally get you selfishly I wish you did create a non-alc wine I've been talking about this in the podcast a lot I'm a big wine drinker love wine I would love a non-alc wine from time to time the quality just isn't there unfortunately there are some exceptions sparkling in particular there's some there's some good exceptions but I think I'm having a hard time and people are going to hear this and be like you you know what?

18:29Screw Taste Radio. I'm never listening to that show again. And I'm not there to criticize anyone's efforts or their brands. I just think that if you're going to call yourself wine, it should taste like wine. If you're going to call yourself a beer, it should taste like beer. And I think that's the concerning part for me about the progress that we've seen in the non-alc space, is that if the quality declines, it's going to hurt the entire category. You mentioned some of the conglomerates out there. I think some of them make decent beer. I think some don't. When you're thinking about those bigger brands, how much do you really want to align yourself with them as part of the category versus say, that's training wheels.

19:12Don't, you know, put them in the same bucket as us. Quick break. If this episode has you thinking about what's next in food and beverage, explore BevNet and Nosh Insider, our subscription platform with deeper insights from the BevNet team. Visit tasteradio.com slash insider to learn more. Can I ask one question? You said if you're going to do wine, it needs to taste like wine. Yes. Do you think it needs to taste like wine? Or do you think it just needs to deliver everything that a wine experience delivers? That's a fair question. I think that if you're going to market something as a Cabernet Sauvignon, own.

19:50It has to be bold. And I think it has to pair well with food. It's hard to say that something can help me experience the moment that I'm in when I am drinking an alcoholic beverage, more specifically an alcoholic wine. But independent of the experience, I think there's just expectations I have with liquid. It has to perform the way I've expected it to perform since I've been drinking wine. If it doesn't, I'm kind of in the boat where I'm in now. And, you know, someone like me, who's, you know, following beverages and has been for the past 14 years, it's not something I'm seeking out. I am seeking out non-alcoholic beer, but just wine I don't think is there yet.

20:33And what I've seen so far has kind of turned me off to the category. Another convoluted way of speaking here, but I don't know if that answered your question or not. yeah I think the wine one is really interesting because I think that if you when you think about what wine delivers in the occasion yeah with food and the kind of the way that it pairs with food so well some of those things you can kind of isolate well it's the you know it's the tannins it's the acidity those sorts of things those don't have to come from grapes for me it's just like I find it sort of like a stimulating kind of topic of conversation because you can tip things on their head a little bit and say, well, does it actually need to be, you know, technically a wine or could it be something else, but which delivers the elements of what wine delivers?

21:25Yeah, I think what you're asking is about language. You know, can you call yourself a wine if it's not, you know, a wine that you've come to know as wine? And certainly, you know, you can make wine out of apples and all kinds of other fruits, but the wine I'm referring to is grape-based wine. And I think that's the expectation most people have when they're tasting a non-alcoholic analog. But getting back to the question of, are you at all concerned about quality and the quality of others, other brands impacting the momentum that the category has, and specifically that Lucky Saint has? I don't think so.

22:04I think there's probably two threads to this. There's absolutely an importance around food safety standards. That's critical to the success of any category. So ensuring that, but I think your question is probably more around flavor profile. And I think we've gone beyond the point of poor tasting products having the ability to sort of derail the category. Well, I ask it because again, there are a lot of people who have not tried alcohol-free beer yet. And so there's a huge number of people who have still yet to taste their first non-alcoholic beer. If it ends up being something that's not great, they may say, well, screw it.

22:48You know, I'm not going to try anything else. It happens a lot. We saw that kind of thing in kombucha. We continue to see it in kombucha where, and maybe it's not low quality, but it's just that the flavor is so off-putting to someone that they're never going to go back to it. So I think that's kind of where I'm at. Like if you're still in the low single digits in terms of percentage of people who drink non-alcoholic beer on a regular basis, that means there's a huge opportunity to reach the rest of those beer consumers. Yeah, I do think there's enough people out there and the conversation is very much live in terms of consumers talking about, well, you know, which ones are good, like what you should be drinking and sure someone might try one and have a not not great experience but i think the category has enough momentum now that they'll put that down to i did try you know that product it wasn't for me i just need to find the ones or the one or the ones that are for me i'm a maybe i'm sort of glass half full on this stuff i think you know of course like having great tasting products in the category is that, you know, that's the single most important thing.

23:56But I don't think having a few people who don't like something, I don't think that derails us. We're almost out of time here, but I do want to ask a more question about marketing, which is, I guess, inherent to the future of any business, but I think in particular yours in that talking to the consumer in a way that's going to be inclusive versus exclusive is important for your brand, I would imagine, and for the category as a whole. What's been the message that resonates most with consumers that are new to the brand? Our pub is probably a good representation of how we view the drinks category, drinking, not drinking, and non-alc in that we're kind of like we're a broad church.

24:45we serve everything in our pub from full strength beer and 40 % ABV spirits through to non-alc and Lucky Saint and many other brands besides and for us as a brand it's always been really important that most of the consumers of of non-alc beer also drink full strength beer so when you say most Is it over 50 %? Is it 90 %? Is it? Yeah, yeah. So like 80 % plus. Wow. Okay. So this is about being inclusive. So that's probably one of the fundamental things that we've done in terms of comms. And then in terms of the brand that we're building, I grew up in a family full of people who all worked in advertising.

25:32so I spent the 1990s watching the greatest tv commercials of all time on a tv channel called UK Gold which basically showed reruns okay and so I'm obsessed by you know the way that brands and beer brands in particular were built and the kind of amazing creative that went into them and I think they've created like you know these like unbelievable like iconic brands and so my head and my heart with Lucky Saint is all around building a brand that will be you know here in a hundred years time that stands for the right things and does things creatively that connect with people and that make people feel positive and you know just make the corners of your mouth just turn up a little bit we're definitely not like a laugh out loud brand but we do things visually and kind of tone of voice wise which have a kind of wry wit to them so that's the ambition and it kind of all goes back to this point around like non-alcoholic beer was a a less than part of the beer category and so my belief was and is that we need to not just build the best non-alcoholic beer brand.

26:53We need to build a brand regardless of category that is, you know, the best it possibly can be. And one that is, you know, people will feel proud to order. So we spend as much time thinking about an executing brand as we do around the beer itself and distributing it and all of that. I love it. Build a brand that's going to be around for a hundred years, I would imagine that's everyone's goal. Or more. Or more. After the century mark, it's all over. No, but I think that's something that all brands should strive for. And I think if you think that way, building a lasting brand, building a sustainable business, it'd probably be easier and more fruitful and more fun than saying, we're going to sell this brand in five years, because that puts a whole different kind of spin on what you're doing.

27:48I think we're seeing the elements of that in Lucky Saint, the former that is, you know, really focusing on something that is going to be a long-term brand that exists in supermarkets, liquor stores, pubs, restaurants across the world. I really do see that potential. And it's one of the reasons I wanted to sit down with you today, Luke. Thank you so much for the time. Really appreciate it. Thank you so much for your hospitality and hosting us here today. And good luck with everything going forward. Thanks very much, Ray. Thanks for coming. And yeah, pleasure to spend this interview with you. And we look forward to this evening.

28:25Absolutely. Thanks again.

28:30That brings us to the end of this episode of Taste Radio. Thank you so much for listening. Taste Radio is a production of BevNet.com Incorporated. Our audio engineer for Taste Radio is Joe Cratchy. Our technical director is Joshua Pratt. And our video editor is Ryan Galang. Our social marketing manager is Amanda Smirlinski. And our designer is Amanda Huang. Just a reminder, if you like what you hear on Taste Radio, please share the podcast with friends and colleagues. And of course, we would love it if you could review us on the Apple Podcasts app or your listening platform of choice. Check us out on Instagram.

29:04Our handle is BevNetTasteRadio. As always, for questions, comments, ideas for future podcasts, please send us an email to ask at taste radio.com on behalf of the entire taste radio team thank you for listening and we'll talk to you next time