Lack of Innovation in the Seltzer Market 

Most hard seltzer companies we believe are “copycat” brands, essentially creating the same products as the leading brands. As our three founders are all the target market for these products, we discovered these problems first-hand. 

We set out to do a taste testing with 50 men and 50 women with the 7 most popular seltzers, and found they shared four main concerns: 

Hidden Opportunity in Fast Growing Market 

Hard Seltzers has become one of the fastest multibillion-dollar industries in the alcoholic beverage space (source). With over $4.5 billion in sales in the 52-week period that ended May 22, 2021, according to NielsenIQ Data, hard seltzers continue on their path of replacing the domestic light beer market. Opportunities for seltzer companies' sales to continue to rise are at an all time high due to this full-on “industry shift” and potential replacement of the $40 Billion Dollar US Light beer market (source). Seltzer sales from wholesalers to retailers this year are occurring at twice the rate of beer sales, according to Fintech InfoSource and the NBWA (source).

“I think we’ve learned over the last year that beer-branded seltzers don’t tend to perform as well,” Molson Chief Communications Officer Adam Collins said in a phone interview. (Source)

Acknowledging trends is extremely valuable and one trend in particular caught our attention that seems to be overlooked. A Cone Cause Evolution Survey discovered that, “when price and quality are equal, 87% of consumers would switch to a brand that supports a cause. In addition, 95% of college students say they are more likely to pay attention to an ad that promotes a brand’s partnership with a particular cause.” (Source)

A Superior Taste in Hard Seltzer

We have taken the time to understand what consumers wanted from a seltzer and started from there to create Passion Tree Hard Seltzer. 

Many seltzers we believe tend to taste the same due to the simplicity of the beverage, Passion Tree embodies a superior taste above other brands. Brewed as a lightly carbonated hard seltzer, making it one of the easiest seltzer to drink. Our drinks are all natural exotic fruit flavors sourced from our premium flavor house. 

We’re directly connected to a positive environmental initiative through our commitment towards planting one tree for every case sold of Passion Tree. “Drinking for a cause” has motivated consumers to make the switch over from their traditional seltzers to ours. Keeping a simplistic design and our signature blue color attracts the attention of consumers while they are shopping.

Unprecedented Growth in San Diego Fueled by an Enthusiastic and Rapidly Growing Community of Consumers

Our brand currently has over 170+ points of distribution throughout Southern California within 4 months. Passion Tree is already available in 14 Ralph’s in San Diego where our seltzer became the top selling SKU at all locations the first weekend of placement. We had the #1 highest selling SKU in Kroger for the 13-week period ending Oct. 3, 2021. 

Strategic expansion in Los Angeles has proven to be extremely effective, and our seltzer is loved by students at UCLA and USC. During our initial launch back in mid-May 2021 the three co-founders activated 83+ liquor stores and since then we have continued to expand our presence into: 

• 20+ additional independent retailers
• 14 Ralphs grocery locations in San Diego County
• Multiple Gas Stations (Extra Mile/Shell)
• Barron's Markets
• Jensen's Grocery
• 40+ additional 7-Elevens throughout Southern California

Through our approval on the GoPuff platform, we are also being activated at 22 BevMo retail stores throughout Southern California which we hope will help ramp up our online ordering presence.

Free Marketing is the best marketing, right? 

People view our cans as very “instagrammable” so we get large amounts of organic exposure through people tagging us on social media while they are enjoying our drinks. 

We have fostered a community of over 44k+ followers on Instagram who are excited and enthusiastic about our seltzer becoming their go-to drink. We collaborate with both micro and macro influencers who post about us consistently. 

While engaging with all the consumers around beach cities with our massive 32ft fully custom wrapped Passion Tree RV. Our RV includes promotional pop-ups, activations, and use of merchandise giveaway while dominating the event space in each area. 

Our manufacturer is a top contract brewer in the country and is constantly in expansion mode which benefits us as we both continue to scale. Our cost to produce goes down as our volume goes up. 

Positive Environmental Impact

With each purchase of a case of our product, we plant one tree in an environmental initiative that is the first of its kind in the seltzer space, according to our research. 

Eden Project's goal is to offer employment to people living in impoverished communities who then become transformational agents of global forest restoration. Eden's global restoration network is creating livelihoods for millions of people living in extreme poverty by empowering them to restore and protect forests on a massive scale. 

Vision for International Expansion

We plan to launch our Caribbean distribution by building a brewery in Puerto Rico where we can produce our seltzer locally. The JV partner is the largest land and resort owner in Puerto Rico and all of the Caribbean islands. We plan to launch across the region in all resorts, clubs and off premises. We already have a can manufacturer in Puerto Rico that has allocated 40 million cans per year for us. We plan to launch our product in Puerto Rico by shipping cases there until the brewery is built. 

Meanwhile, we are working on a deal to launch our product in China starting in the four main coastal cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. We have a detailed marketing plan on how we are going to effectively take over the market as the first major hard seltzer to launch in China.