How Tenzing Are Taking On Red Bull & Monster With The Good Energy Revolution, Ft. Huib van Bockel #29

0:04Hello and welcome back to Yumi and CPG and today we're talking about energy. The energy drinks category has had year-on-year growth for over 30 years and it's still in high growth across Western Europe and the US. Red Bull and Monster, the hardcore extreme side of energy, still dictate play. But there's a wave of more modern, healthier energy drinks that speak to a new consumer, and is in faster penetration growth. One of those pioneers is Tenzing, who are driving this natural subcategory and becoming a force to be reckoned with in their own right. Interestingly, they are backed by Heineken. We have Tenzing founder Hub van Bockel to get us under the skin of the category and the culture surrounding it, and of course, a view on the future of the category and what that might look like.

0:53Thank you very much for coming in. How are you? Yeah, very good. Thank you. Good. Great to have you on board. We're going to explore all things Tenzin and all things energy, and we've got loads to talk about. Something I want to start with, which I'm sure you get asked an awful lot, but I think it's incredibly interesting. You were deep inside Red Bull at one point in your career. What did you see that you thought, this isn't right or I can do this better?

1:23um yeah it's like a funny question because i think um if you're any founder will tell you how incredibly tough it is and that's not as you know you know i used to read the books i used to love i remember reading losing my virginity from richard branson and that's my first like it found a book and i just read it like a novel i loved it like and that's also like you know and i thought oh this is what i want and it all sounds so romantic yeah and he's and all of them also like shoe dog yeah yeah just it's and and they share how tough it is they don't hold back but when you read it you're all romantic yeah yeah it's like it's like when you're uh you know watching some movie that's really tough but you always yeah romance about it but then when you're in it it is really just tough so i think always the only the only reason why someone would do it is if they are you know extremely kind of stubborn and i was always that so if you say what could they do better i always had that at any company i always i never listened i had a lot of great bosses but i never liked listening to them it's all my all the big things i did in my life were effectively not listening to people telling me what to do kind of so i do believe in that as a kind of you know philosophy also in big companies you have to let people hire the people that don't listen and you know then let them be a bit you know but if you ask me specifically about um red bull i to be honest i don't think you could fault them on hardly anything when it comes to brand yeah done a pretty good job done a pretty good job uh yeah named me a better brand to be honest yeah you know that's more consistent yeah bigger you know always is bigger but like you know in the fmcg space i mean it's just how they exploded i mean there's there's luck in there as well of course timing but yeah but i was just i was there for eight years and after a while i didn't didn't feel the same way about the product but you wanted to stay in the category of yes i So I was like, you know, because I started one business before and it was really interesting.

3:19It's kind of, I loved it actually. It could have been a very successful business, I believe. There's nothing wrong with the concept. The concept was actually super strong, but I just wasn't the right person to launch it, you know, or to make it big. What was it? It was like, you know, so I was, I started my career at Unilever. And then at one point, I just, I always liked the creative side more. And then I was, at one point I was like, you're a marketing manager, but you're more manager than marketing. So, and the Unilever was fine. if I'd launched my own business on the side. And it was like, you know, it was basically based on my youth that I've always kind of liked clothes.

3:49And there was like, you know, you remember the boxer short, right? Back in the day, you just buy that in the supermarket, whatever your mom would buy that in the supermarket. And then like Marky Marking with all the Calvin Klein ads. And all of a sudden, a boxer short was like 50 quid. Yeah, became a brand. Yeah, became a brand. Like, you don't see it really, you know. And then I thought that the only, And so it was something like 2003, 2004. It's the only like internet kind of just starting. And I was like, you know, the sock is the only unrevolutionized item. And I'm going to revolutionize the sock.

4:21You know, what a great mission to have. Yeah, yeah, that's great. Start in fashion, start at the bottom. Yeah, yeah. And that was one insight. The other insight was, okay, internet is coming. And what do you do? There's no clothing item back then that you would buy online, except I thought the only item that you would potentially buy is the sock. So it was actually quite, you know, the insights were like spot on. I actually didn't know that much about fashion, but I especially didn't know a lot about kind of the online kind of, you know, because it got a lot of press, but it wasn't enough. So I mean, it was Facebook, no, 100 % it wasn't around.

4:53So there wasn't even anything to kind of, so I wasn't like a, like a, you know, whatever technical kind of geeks, website builder, like a tech guy. and I wasn't a fulfillment person so as soon as we launched I like basically lost all my interest yeah and then I also to be honest I got then I got the job actually from Red Bull offered so I was at MTV between that did that I don't know and then we just kind of sold the business so I learned a lot from it because I was like you know okay I learned what I loved which I knew kind of from my work anyway but then do something that you really so the three lessons I got from it best to do something that you do know or at least that you know that you will love doing two is uh go all in you know I didn't kind of I just kept my job on the side this was never it never felt like a real thing yeah but it could have been big right yeah I mean happy socks launched like two years after that it became a massive massive brand yeah and ours was even kind of funnier and you know um and and so the go all in yeah so i think you know those are the two ones know know the business go all in and kind of do something that you know you will keep enjoying yes so that was the kind of so i took those learnings and then i got my career and then funny enough and then at red bull i actually four years before i started testing i actually pitched a natural energy brand within red bull in red bull not a brand just like launch a innovation natural yeah Red Bull and they didn't want to so that's I mean he just said like you know what are they going to think about my own brand and I said well nothing's going to change because they already think that's artificial yeah yeah I think Red Bull to be honest if you look at them it's not I'm not like you know telling them all for anything you just see like Monster is the innovation it's this and so are we Red Bull is the marketing machine I mean innovation wise they've never been really like ahead yeah so I think no actually you look at some of their innovations pretty poor actually pretty poor of their delivery of them yeah very very very poor yeah and always copy like always second you know so obviously Monster started with the big can then they went around then they started big can they had like you know all the flavors they didn't flavor for a long long time Monster did a lot of flavors even the sugar free was like you know that was done by maybe Monster before or even like I think Tesco before so Tesco was the first then they were oh let's do it so or they were like you know remember reading the business case of the Intel guy I don't know the CEO just said only focus on the like intel inside and only focus on making that little chip faster yeah and that was mega successful for 20 years and then all they had was that yeah and i think red bull is a bit that where you go one skew one brand business yeah extremely powerful yeah extremely successful why change the winning formula and now it's like you know yeah it's yeah i know yeah i always i never liked talking ill about them for me it was just very simple yeah i just thought look the product is yeah sucks there's obviously a lot said between the challenger mentality the big company mentality you've obviously got now a little bit of a an insight into heineken and obviously red bull previously how do you how can you describe the difference between a startup a challenger versus a big company yeah so i think i had to think about this the other day and i was like if you're at a big like you know again i was at red bull i was head of marketing for uk and Europe and as like but you are like sailing a ship that has been built like the foundations are there right you know very much at Red Bull you know there the can was there that has so you obviously if you're doing a great job you can hopefully make it go a bit faster and maybe steer it a slightly different but when your own business you're just you're building that boat while steering it as well through pretty muddy water yeah choppy waters where all these big dogs are trying to effectively kill you you know so and i think that's also the toughness so you're what the big thing is there i thought is like you're living with those decisions that you've all made and some of those probably weren't great or maybe you second guessed them so and then you're gonna go can i should i make them better should i make the boat better or should i just kind of steer it so that whole that makes it so tough i think how do you think a person you know head of marketing marketing manager marketing director how can you take some of that energy into a bigger business that kind of mentality resilience that owner mindset yeah yeah how do you think you can do that uh i've always thought like you know it's a bit of a strange one but i've always think you should be willing to be fired at all times you know so it's like you know if you if you listen if you because the end of the day that's the whole point we do that at tensing as well we kind of have a flat structure as we possibly can because the people out there in a country will at red bull for instance or any company will probably know best You know, so it's like, how do you keep them within the guidelines, of course, but also just, you know, as a person, like if you asked me as a person, I would just say like, you know, being like just an independent mindset, like all the decisions that were really good that I made, even within companies, were kind of not listening to what was said.

9:51And I think, yeah, just be, try and be free of that all because I think you'll be better and then they will, you know, sometimes they'll be annoyed in the short term because you didn't maybe listen to whatever, but like in the long term, you see the benefits of that. Get off autopilot, isn't it? Yeah, exactly, exactly. And just challenge the thinking, especially if you're in a bigger company that's not going that well anymore. Use that momentum to go, hey, what are we going to do here? And try things. I think that's also the big things with big companies. For small companies, I always say you've got to turn around the time.

10:23So at smaller companies, like us, we launch super fast. If we have an idea, we can have it in three months' time, we can have it on the market. and then we take that idea we stick with it for a long time you know well big companies they took a long time to launch and then they're like what yeah i mean three months three months it doesn't work you know well so if you got to turn that around and go hey this is this there is some insights in this product that it could work in the long run make that like you know earmark that brand as you know tenzing would have been delisted cut at any big business right i think whatever in year three we were doing a million turnover like for every business be like wow that's way too small yeah it's no good going nowhere yeah so but it's like you know finding those little nuggets nuggets and just kind of giving them more time it's really funny because why are startups so important because big businesses are stuck with their old products imagine asking imagine you have the ceo coca-cola in your podcast you'd ask them hey what if we say the following we take so For instance, we've got about 60%, 65 % less sugar in there in our products without replacing them with artificial sweeteners or anything.

11:33So you say that's okay. Would you take 60 % of your sugar out now, make it a significantly healthier product, and all your people would still love the taste and you wouldn't sell? Of course you'd do it. Yeah, they'd do it. Yeah, yeah. But he's stuck with his old product. Yeah, yeah. And that's why they don't dare change. Yeah, so startups drive the innovation. Startups drive the innovation because all these brands are stuck with old products that people have grown to love. Yeah. But actually the trends and everything or like, or their conscience of like, you know, doing something healthier says, says something else.

12:04Yeah. And then actually they become quite bad at innovation because they've become so big and so good at the machine. Yeah. That they can't innovate really. For sure. I mean, just going back to your point of, of understandably not you don't want to kick something like Red Bull or Monster on the back of pack. You've got a phrase that says life is too good for bad energy. Well, maybe I do kick him in that sense.

12:30But it's a competitive mindset. It's effectively saying bad energy is the traditional energy, the extreme, the artificial, the big boys of the energy world. And this is something different, right? That's a pretty pointed message. It is. And what I really like about it, like, you know, we have a really, and it's really cool when you start your own business. So the one thing I knew when I started, all I knew in my mind was one thing. I've always been an outdoors person. I've never really liked all the motorsport side of Red Bull. I've always loved, I love skiing, I love running, I love bouldering.

13:05I was bouldering this morning with my son again, you know, so, you know, all the, I love hiking, surfing, you know, and I, you know, I love nature and then, that's what I didn't like about the Red Bulls and the, it's just the artificial stuff, the, you know, the, and it's really interesting if you really dive deep into that. So for instance, if, if, let's say, global warming like if it's really like a bad summer like so hot or it gets really cold then the raspberries don't make it so i am as a person connected to nature because i have to like i'm like oh my god if nature doesn't give me my plants you know i'm gonna have a bad year well if you make everything in a lab in china or wherever they make it it doesn't matter at all so there's no connection to nature anymore in that sense not and that's even without your kind of what you put your body did so i always thought okay the basic idea was energy from nature for nature yeah that was like the basic premise yeah but then to get like you know to you know funny when you've got your own brand you shape it around your own yeah yeah things that you love and then but i don't know about five years ago so halfway in the journey then so we caught so so like good energy became like our mantra yeah and then we said okay you know that's our mission is to spread good energy and that's it's such a beautiful simple mission i think and i love it that's so important yeah And we have that in three.

14:20And then so to come back to your question, yeah, life's too good for bad energy. It means that. Why take artificial energy and all that kind of stuff? That does crash you. Like people, we do a lot of research around that. They get a little and they get a little crash because there's so much sugar or there's the artificial caffeine spikes. So we see that 91 % of our customer base says we get the same or more energy than the artificial energy drinks without the crash. Where's the growth come from, though? Because we've done a lot of work in energy. And I'm still amazed by, you know, the category has been growing for 30 years and it hasn't gone backwards.

14:54And it's still in very strong double-digit growth. It'll overtake COLA this year, I think. Yeah, in general, CSDs, you know, you put energy and sports drinks together and there is some serious, serious scale there. In a world where CSDs has not seen that growth, what continues to drive energy from a consumer point of view? Why is it in demand as it is? You know, there's a couple of reasons. So first of all, still the growth will continue, I think, for years to come. So if you look at cola, so cola in the UK or anywhere in the world, right, probably has about like a 95 % penetration like per year.

15:35Everyone will have an occasional cola. I think energy, you know, the numbers are a bit like, because a lot on the go is less than 50. So the penetration is still very, very low. It's a good opportunity there. Yeah, and there's a lot of barriers. you know so our about 50 percent of our customers are totally new to the category because there's three reasons why people don't like an energy drink they're very obvious everyone can name them first of all there's maybe the vaguest it's like it's very masculine teenage motorsports like you know uh you know so it really caters to a specific you know demographic and monster driving gaming and gaming whatever you know so that is like you know there's a lot of people who are like that's not for me right you know so they've done that right very deliberately but funny enough you know they're trying to like break out of it i'll go football and stuff but still it's it's cling clings to them like a you know bad smell bad smell yeah well that's another one smells really bad a fourth yeah uh second is like yeah taste people just like don't like that sickly sweet taste like unless you feel more of your teeth right you know and thirdly like your health um the health worries that are around it.

16:40So like, and we tackle all those. So we cater way more to like, you know, we've got a 50-50 male, female split. Yeah. We talk about like running. So we, and we're very much like, you know, and that's the beauty again of innovation. So we talk about good energy and that says good energy for us. Four things. One, what you put in your body. Like this is like all science based, right? You could argue like what, what gives you good energy in your day-to-day life? What do you put in your body? Yeah. That's one. Like for instance, I nearly basically, since I started my business, I hardly drink anymore.

17:11Like definitely not during the week because I just noticed like you need so, you need to be so resilient to start your business. Like you can't get anything. It's not really a bad day. No, it's because something could hit you all of a sudden. You're like, oh my God. So you need to have that constant resilience. So what you put in your body, like, you know, having kind of that growth mindset, like we call it the personal Everest. Yeah. You know, named after Tenzing, the first man on Everest. So just have a goal, like moving forward, you know, that's really good for your energy. Then community. So again, if you think about the Monsters and the Red Bulls, all about Formula One, it's one person beating all the other people, right?

17:42It's very individual, ATs, you know, when it was all launched. And now it's different. It's like, you know, like we were discussing before, like they say, Lestrava says the Run Club is the new club. New pub, yeah, yeah. So people love being in the community. So if you've got people with good energy around you, that's crucial, of course, you need that. And then the last one is like kind of trying to leave it a little bit better than you found it. So I think those are kind of our four kind of good energy pillars. And culture in itself has sort of, you know, it's either impressive foresight from you guys, but better for you energy drinks, but better for you products, functional drinks.

18:22All of that stuff is obviously on the rise, but culturally, as you just said, younger generations choosing a run club instead of a pub, outdoor pursuits in high growth in terms of occasions and socializing connection in those spaces. It feels very much like you're tapping into that very deliberately. And do you look back and you sort of think, yeah, I did feel that at some point it was going to go that way. and look at it in that context obviously red bull and monster is still in strong growth they're huge brands and they won't just cease but they're starting to feel slightly culturally dated yeah yeah no i agree look i am like very in tune with what's kind of going on so i think i think that is like you know it's always good i think if you want to be you know in any kind of business right it's like good to know your real strengths and your weaknesses and i've got some really clear weaknesses as well right which i know very well which is also crucial in your business to outsource those bits but i do i do believe i have got like a good feel for what people like like and what i like and so yeah i definitely so and to be honest like if i'm also unmodest i think we kind of started the night you know the the i don't think the better for you drinks i think we're like that we're the first natural energy brand yeah of course within energy but i think even like if you look at think of dash yeah think of trip they all started like two couple three four years after me yeah and we and we know them i know them very well it's really they're very successful right you they're doing an amazing job but like you know i think you know because you had obviously you had fever tree and innocent which i don't think they were based around health no no maybe laying the grain groundwork a little bit yeah 100 % like i'm not saying like you know but there was obviously many many before us but i think from a kind of a soft drink perspective you know that that a soft drink or an energy drink can also be from nature and healthier yeah and funny if you don't see that And that's it.

20:13So we, like you, for instance, we started in Holland and the trend is not there yet at all. Right. So in the UK, that's quite far ahead because there's all these great brands that trip and dash, you know, leading the way and then people that, because you have to open, you know, as a, as a, just a normal person because we've always had like, you know, because I know from my days there as well that people think energy works because it's so bad for you. Yeah. So because it's all those bad ingredients actually give me the energy. The worse the taste, the better the efficacy. Yeah, exactly. Like taurine, what is this?

20:45It must be like, people would always go, I think like 20 cups of coffee. You know, it's not, it's just a one cup of coffee. In fact, Red Bull with a lot of sugar in it. But so, you know, so people to kind of say, okay, how could you say, no, this stuff still works, which is obviously the main reason why people buy an energizing drink, but you don't have to worry about the health effects. That was the kind of core challenge. Yeah. And by opening that up, I think people started to open it up for that. and then they might think okay i'll try dash as well and like you know so and and that sense all these kind of startups help each other yeah you know because then you know dash so we were the first ones for another great example so when i went to all these kind of flavor houses which you have to do so i went like i talked to all these nutritional that's also the cool you start your own business you can start again from scratch what's known scientifically now and what's also known just in culturally like what and like so one of the key things obviously first of all i wanted everything to be natural secondly you know what's the sugar levels you're going to go for um and i was really keen not to have any kind of sweeteners as well so i remember going to all this so i had this all and then the amount of sugar so we have about four and a half grams of sugar per 100 amount and all the cokes and red bulls all have 11 grams and it's really funny because the history is not clear but i think i think when coca-cola launched like more than 100 years ago they probably based that on let's say apple juice or something because that's what the palate likes so all juices are all 11 grams roughly yeah coke is 11 grams red bull's 11 grams so even at red bull monster that is in there for the flavor not for the effect right so the best sugar so you need a bit of sugar well the sugar gets a lot of bad press so you need a bit of it but not that much so when you're for instance on the you know i had to work to the nutritional doctor and he had the best example he said when you're on a drip feed let's say you know in the hospital when you're in a coma or whatever you get about four and a half grams of sugar in that you know and some salt which we have so we've got that exact same sugar salt base yeah and then on that base there's the natural caffeine the you know it's the electrolyte antioxidants l-theanine from green tea so it's like that's why you don't get the you know you don't you get the energy but you don't get the you know spikes yeah the crash yeah yeah so you know i think and then oh yeah and then what i wanted to say was then i said okay i want to take about 60 of the sugar out and all of them said what do you want to replace it with all of them they'd never had a drink that just took it out yeah and i said i don't want to impress with anything and everyone was like that's not gonna be commercially viable no one wanted to do it right i've only found one party that luckily wanted to do it yeah and then since then of course like the trips are at those levels of sweetness that a dash took it even further yeah yeah so that that opens you know the palate up to yeah new normal new normals new normals and that's the cool thing that's what world health organization also says it's like just drink and eat less sweet yeah because people always go like artificial sweetness they're not bad for you but there's 100 proof that if you if you're constantly eating that or drinking artificial sweetness your palate gets used just like salt you get used to it then you crave more sweetness well if you just kind of tone it down like for instance our kids we never gave them any coke or anything they don't like that even the taste of yeah too powerful isn't it it's like a film like you know tensing is really their kind of you know that's that's what they love and then everything below so i think that's my five-year-old calls it fuzzy she's had had it once and said it's too fuzzy i think do you mean fizzy's i know no it's fuzzy it's in my mouth it's fuzzy it's a great description yeah it is it is exactly and i think you know that's the beauty of uh yeah kind of starting something new yeah kind of seeing what what you can make that issue yeah and and just just yeah i think you you've touched on some really interesting kind of competitor brands or startup brands in a similar space.

24:22And that's what's really interesting is they are in a similar space. They don't see themselves as energy drinks, but they are in a similar space. And that speaks to the shift that we've seen with consumer needs blurring, right? There's been a huge shift, particularly with the younger generation, of needing different things at different times, making it actually quite difficult, particularly for bigger brands, to work out what they want when they want it. Is looking at how Tenzing is drunk across occasions, across kind of need states, is it quite blurred in terms of how consumers engage with it when they drink it, when they want it?

24:58Yeah, so we've always had a really, which I think, you know, is the best approach. So when you launch a new business, you know, the number one thing, because you get so many people listen to these podcasts maybe, and there might be thousands of pieces of advice, and I always think be very careful what you follow because it might not work for your category or your specific time or your person. But I always think there's one thing that every startup who was ever successful did and that was focus, right? You know, so every brand that ever started, started with a tiny little community, right? You know, I always love when I do like, I always say like, name your brand, I'll tell you, you know, people go like, oh, Amazon didn't.

25:34You know, well, yeah, they did. Just do the book, books. All they did was books. And then the long tail, there's anything you could only get these specific books on amazon and he just and if you see the interviews he was just doing he was practicing yeah he was getting that first group of people on board with books and now if you just start people if you're young now you'd never know that amazon started with books even like apple yeah you think about the iphone it all started with the ipod yeah and the ipod was all about music and before ipod they just launched the itunes so they'll said look you can't at the moment you call these digital songs on your computer and we'll have a free tool for you that you can now organize these songs.

26:09It's called iTunes. Everyone's like, great, free, amazing. And then also, hey, here's an iPod, actually. Now you can create that music and you can carry it with you. And then after that, they launched, obviously, the iPhone, where music is still a really big part of it. The focus was this stuff. So it's tiny little focus. Obviously, music is big, but organizing your... So an iPhone started by organizing your music on your laptop. Very niche. Facebook, right? Like just, you're only allowed to be on Facebook if you're on Harvard with a Harvard email, right? And I think that is something that people forget.

26:39So I always say when people say like, oh, I'm going to start a chain of shops. I don't even mean a chain, you know? I think - Stop shop. Stop one shop. Yeah, yeah. Like, you know, I think, what was this number? Pret-a-Manger, 12 years, they had one shop, something like that. Yeah. So every, every, like Strava, beautiful example, they created an app that you could just, if you could move the sport, it could do it. And all they did was cycling. and there's a great podcast with those guys and they're like you know our biggest debate was when do we launch that when we open up to that second community which is running and they did I think they took eight years yeah and then there was a big debate and then all these cyclists because they wanted to enrich that kind of and we've done that for instance with so I was you know our name so I left Red Bull I wanted a launch and that was for nature from nature and then I was traveling and I found what the Sherpas drink so they drink really strong teas with salt and a lemon tea.

27:31And I had this doctor that helped me and I said, is this cultural or is this actually, you know, scientifically proven? He goes, it is actually because it's a triple hit of natural caffeine, vitamin C and electrolytes and then the L-theanine as well. So that just became the base of our recipe. And then I thought, then Tenzing came to me because my dad was always a big Tenzing fan because he climbed Mount Everest in 1953. My dad was about 10 at the time. And he just loved, my dad always loved the underdog story. Amazing story. It is. And to brand it from having that Sherpa story right at the heart of it.

28:04And it also embodies so much of it feels like the culture within the business. It is. And that feels authentic. It is true.

28:16And that was cool. And obviously, if you start a drinks business, the name is the most difficult bit because it's the same category. Obviously, everyone will know. you've got trademarks and trademarks in certain categories but in the 32 trademark that is the same as all juices all beers all red all kind of energy drinks all soft drinks just imagine and I wanted to have a global name because I always thought start focused but like think of potentially having and being a global brand and like no name is of course available anymore because a lot of people like to trademark a name don't launch a business it's like not only the names that are seen out there so literally everything I came up with was already taken and then I was actually like in Asia on a on a on a trip and I found this recipe and then I thought Tenzing and I looked in and it was available and a zing means energy and like and I thought it was such a shame that he was forgotten because he's such he's one of the biggest like mountaineers and biggest like explorers no one knows him anymore so I was like wow and it was like a spiritual moment it was like this is like this all comes together now And I went to this trademark office in the UK.

29:29You can register online. Went to the trademark. And I said, do I actually need permission from the family? He said, no, they don't. Because Tenzing is a very normal name in that area. We say if someone in Nepal would call the drink, John. But I thought, I want their permission. I found them. And we went to Nepal. And we went all the way to Temboche Valley. Monastery. And, yeah, we kind of made a deal. Or we made a deal with them. They're shareholders. They give rev shares. That's fantastic. on this journey ever since. And then that coming back to the community and the start, it's a long answer to a question.

30:04To focus, yeah, focus. To focus. It was like, I was like, okay, but like, so for instance, and then I, at the time as well, it was really funny because a lot of, there was a lot of, you know, 2016, there's a lot of tech talk about how polluted Everest was. Yeah, yeah. So I spoke to Jumbling, his son. I was like, hey, can we do something about that? And I was like, I was hoping that I could go back and we could do like a cleaning mission. It was like that, those cleaning missions have no impact at all. we need to build bins there was no bins you know there was just like these oil that fall over whatever so I'm like okay so I literally spent my first 10 ,000 pounds on marketing spent building bins in the year and then I thought like how can I bring that kind of Himalayan world to the to London yeah and finally bouldering was just becoming a thing and like I think there was one or two bouldering walls in London now there's like nearly 50 you know bouldering is now a big sport yeah yeah and that's really beautiful like we've been really kind of part of that community and just like Strava kind of you know it's a great example made cycling just a bit better they were looking actively looking to how can we add to that community that's what we did with Tenzing as well so when are consumers drinking this stuff is it after sport is it pre-sport you know the way you're describing it much more like a sports drink yep versus a a tradition which is not but a traditional drink which is used for getting through the work day yeah well I think no exactly we definitely more because we also have the electrolytes funny enough electrolytes is now super hot yeah yeah but we've already had them in there for like you know 10 years um so i think people do use it for like a pre-run pre-workout you know during a climb yeah so i think it's about like you know again we do or you know we talk to our customer base and like you know on our website and i think it's there that we see it's about 50 50 so 50 percent really kind of in those in and then funny enough it is all in the communities that we focus on yeah we started with bouldering running gym uh and that's where people drink us yeah and then there are other and we've always always focused on uh kind of you know officers in unis as well so we are the number one energy drink in london unis yeah you know we've we outsell uh the red bulls and the monsters in unis yeah which is really cool right so we're the number one energy drink in like forward-thinking offices we've been in google ever since 2016 like they don't have any red bulls so that's really interesting right because i think a lot of people have an issue particularly with monster uh from an equity perspective that you turn up to your office with a can of monster people that you're hung over right like it's a it's short and actually not dissimilar to to red bull and and therefore they stay quite naturally young in terms of those brands to that kind of teenage vibe um did you do you think about that kind of lifestyle identity piece for your consumer as not well i mean that's the beautiful opportunity that's why we do so well and all those kind of let's say you know tech offices yeah bang so we're very big and let's say or canary wharf we're in all those offices because people are generally ashamed to walk around with something it's just like you know when you're eating a mcdonald's yeah you know you might enjoy it but you're not like you know like oh my god look what i'm doing here and that's it i know probably energy drinks are even worse and that's that's always you know buy those three things that i said because actually they cater to that audience.

33:14They want to be like Monster, especially they just go, we cooked up a double shot of this shit in our lives and blah, like Monster trucks. And that's why interesting with all the successful brands that launched, you had Red Bull, and then all the other brands that launched, Monster, then Bang, you had in the US, it was very big, it was all like, we're stronger. Even Celsius that has launched now, actually they say there's just artificial sweetener. They've got fruit on the can, but there's actually not a trace of fruit in the can. and it has 200 milligrams of caffeine. So they upped the amount of caffeine versus the Red Bull and Monster even.

33:46So they had this health cue, but actually if you look at the product, it's just stronger. So we were the first ones to go, no, no, you can actually, we have the same amount of caffeine as the Red Bull. But it's just because it's sourced from green tea and green coffee, it's not so spiky. So I think, you know, we were the first to go, no, no, this can actually be done in a different way. Yeah, and you can walk in. And therefore, you don't have to be ashamed or actually maybe even be proud. Yeah. I like, you know, because coming back to the good energy bit, I like achieving things. I'm actually focusing now.

34:19Like, you know, I want to kind of get something done. Yeah. So that is very, very powerful for us. You're also seeing that just thinking that kind of blurred consumer space that because of consumers are drinking less, there's a kind of fun world of where kind of alcohol has often played a role. and there's a kind of fuel world where brands like Tenzing are playing really well. And there feels like there's a bit of an overlap of those two spaces at the moment. Do you think that's an interesting space for you to go? But which ones then exactly? So I guess, you know, thinking of the likes of Trip being able to be, you know, drunk in a bar.

34:58Yeah. Or, you know, even brands like Alane New from the US. it's a very it's an energy drink but it's a very fun expressive yeah female driven energy drink bought for 1.8 billion by pepsco yeah so that those types of brands are kind of in that kind of fun space but do you what what do you make of that do you think it's an interesting area would you kind of think to be pushing into that um look what i think you know for instance if i look at just the uk like dash trip and tenzing are like you could argue the main kind of you know better for you disrupt our brands but i think in a very very different space very different occasions like you know dash i love drinking a dash as well like i drink one hour when i it's my like go-to in the evening when i come home yeah i cycle home then i have a dash i'd never have a tensing at like seven o 'clock in the evening so it's still like what i like about that product it's like which i think is what it's catered for it still gives you a sense of you know indulgence yeah cracking open again there's some flavor there but there is like no sugar there's just water at the end of the day yeah uh so i we don't compete with that at all trip you could argue there is like i love their brand as well i love the fact that they've claimed the world calm yeah you know but we're good energy and there is a bit like so for instance our newest launch which is the fiery mango yeah it has lion's mane yeah so they have some of those lion's mates but i think still the so it's like cognitive it's like you know you know bringing going further but for us the position is really about like we say good energy for your toughest days yeah so it's it's it's still a very You've got to be going after monster with this, right?

36:30Like it's got, it's fiery. It's in a bigger can. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you see, we had like, the insight behind that was that you, about 52%, I believe, is loyal to a size. This was one of our biggest decisions as well. So if you talk about, you know, Strava going into running, you know, we discussed this for years. Yeah, it was a big one. We were like, yeah, does it fit our brand? You know, but at the end of the day, we were like 52 % of the energy drinker, of big can drinkers will not drink a small can. Yeah. They just like that. Just wedded to that format. Yeah. They like that kind of a level of, you know, caffeine.

37:06Yeah. They like that, you know, they like the big can in their hands. Like it's very kind of an emotional bond nearly. So we were, and also of course in the UK, you've got this meal deal thing. Yeah. You know, so it's like near the bigger and the more expensive, the more likely to buy you. So we were, we thought for a long, long time, we launched it. It's our best seller straight away. Amazing. Yeah. So again, we, so we put the sugar even lower there. So it's like, you know, it's like a quarter of the sugar. That's a monster. And you're stealing share from Monster. We don't know the data there yet.

37:36I don't look, I think as well, like, you know, we see across the board, we did a big Tesco, I think it's a hundred percent of our drinks is additional. Yeah. So that's what also our other retailers like so much about it. It is wholly additional and it's like premium. So you're getting new people in and you're getting premium customers. you know younger customers as well kind of our average age is not like teenager like you know the maybe the red bull monsters are but the average is around about that 25 mark yeah you know just out of we always said the uni moment where at red bull and stuff they wanted to get like they always said like you know where monsters are clearly focused on teenagers yeah you know with all skateboarding all that stuff even our communities like if you go to a run club you go to go to climbing wall i think the average age is always around that 25 mark maybe 20 between 25 and 13 so that's really kind of and we we start at unis so we want you know that's why you need a big focus we want you to go okay god when i was a youngster i used to drink red balls and monsters i'm now going to live by myself i'm going to like start and you know that's why we do so well yeah yeah and and yeah just talking to you you seem very thoughtful very considered you take things very seriously big decisions weigh on you heavily heineken that must have been an enormous decision right is how talk us through that that how did that come about and just the mentality of going yet it's now's the time yeah to let external investments from a company like heineken yeah so look i and i think that's also a very important mindset you know i think was it someone said like i think it was bill gates wasn't it was you overestimate what you can do in one year and the rest of it would be 110.

39:16And not that I said that to myself when I started, but I went way slower than I thought. And it was way tougher than I thought. But I was never in it to sell it. I was always, I know I'm going to love this. I'm going to build it around what I love. Your lifestyle, yeah. We're B Corp, we're rainforest alive. So again, from nature for nature, that's been at the heart of everything we do. And I'm never going to sell. And that wasn't like a thing, like a posing thing. It was genuine. And I think that's looking back is also one of the most powerful things because that automatically gives you a really long runway in your mind because you don't like, again, so many people like, oh, I'm launching, I haven't even launched.