AUSTIN ALLAN, founder, Tio Gazpacho: ‘Buyers would say: How come no one has done this before?’
Another man on a mission to build a new category in grocery is Miami-based entrepreneur Austin Allan, who acknowledges that some retailers didn’t know quite what to make of his ‘chilled soup in a bottle’ when he first started pitching it last year, but most “just got it immediately”
He adds: “And then they would say: How come no one has done this before?”
While the price tag - $8.99 for a 12oz bottle with a 60-day shelf-life (thanks to high pressure processing) - is high, it’s consistent with what people are paying for a bottle of premium cold-pressed juice, says Allan, although he is aiming to bring the price down to $7.99 in the future.
Meanwhile, his product can also work as a meal replacement (tagline: 'no bowl required'), says Allan, who spent time in Madrid while studying Spanish literature and marketing at college and was so bowled over by Spain - and gazpacho - that he moved to Barcelona after he graduated and spent another three years there before heading back to the US.
As for the positioning, he explains: "This merges soup and beverages; we’re creating a new category... People often ask, where does it go? It goes best in the produce aisle, where it is in context, rather than next to 25 different brands of premium juice, but it also works well as a grab and go product in the chiller."
Click HERE to read more about Tio Gazpacho.