Perfect World Ice Cream
Perfect World makes premium vegan & free from ice cream with a list of health benefits & no added sugars.
- Location
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Tunbridge Wells,
United Kingdom
Categories: Food & Beverage Non-Digital Mixed B2B/B2C
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Investment
sought: - £100,006
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Equity
offered: - 3.45%
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Investment
amount: - £331,445
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Valuation
(pre-money): - £2,800,290
Idea
Introduction
Truly ‘healthy indulgence’ is the Perfect World Ice Cream Company’s primary objective. The industry has developed ‘less bad for you’ diet products for years, but we have focused on indulgent products that are actually good for you. PWIC was born with the aim to make premium ice cream that tastes as delicious and indulgent as you’d expect, but with real, legally approved health benefits.
Perfect World ice creams have no added sugars and are gluten free, dairy free, soya free, wheat free, have reduced saturated fats and will be vegan with the introduction of our range in April. In addition, we have 12 added vitamins and minerals, which we believe is a first for ice cream worldwide. An entire tub of our Sweet Espresso has 100%+ of the daily amount of vitamins D, E, B1, B2, B3, B5, B7, B12, Chromium, Manganese, Copper and Zinc, and only 342 calories (34 per scoop), 6.55g of saturated fats and 4.4g of natural sugars. These are significant points of difference between our products and others on the market.
Intended impact
We think that our ice cream's health benefits and free from attributes allow a higher consumption rate without guilt or fears of unhealthy side effects associated with high-fat high-sugar ice creams. In fact we believe it's quite the opposite. We think consumers can get health benefits from indulging in a full tub in one sitting.
We have received innumerable messages from vegans requesting that we remove eggs from our products. After working at it for the past couple of years we have accomplished this with our new range, and in the process we have reduced our environmental impact and become animal friendly.
It is broadly believed that 'free from' food and vegan food are healthier choices, but this is often not the case. For example, a 500ml tub of Ben and Jerry's vegan range has around 25 teaspoons of sugar, versus ours having approximately 1. We want to rebalance this misconception, and make it clear to the industry that we think there is a way to make indulgent food healthy and beneficial without sacrifice.
Substantial accomplishments to date
2012
Product development.
Incorporation.
September - Further development for scale up at the Reading University Department of Food and Nutritional Sciences.
2013
First factory trials.
August - Keith leaves Regional Director position at Saatchi and Saatchi and joins Chris to work on Perfect World.
2014
April - Launched the first stevia sweetened ice cream brand in the UK, as far as we are aware. Stocked in Holland and Barrett nationwide.
2015
Jan - Our range of four flavours is stocked in Ocado (Belgian Chocolate Brownie, Carrot Cake, Strawberry, Banana Walnut Chip) and supported by marketing campaign.
December - New BRC grade A factory contracted, Callestick Farm, Cornwall. Factory invest in Perfect World via shares (2.02% currently) for production.
2016
March - Launch in Tesco.
April - Freefrom Awards winner Children’s Food category.
2017
March - Tesco extends store numbers.
July - Grocer New Product Awards Finalist.
August - Good Choice Quality Food Awards Shortlisted.
September - Green Seed UK sales and marketing agency contracted.
November - Green Seed Holland sales and marketing agency contracted.
Continuous work throughout the year - Reformulation to vegan with added vitamins and minerals. New branding and packaging design.
2018
January - Listing obtained for Netherlands.
April :
• New vegan range launch with three new flavours.
• Expansion of range in Ocado.
• Launch in the Netherlands.
Monetisation strategy
With the launch of the new range and new brand identity we are focused on driving volume via organic growth, a widening of target retailers and expansion into export markets.
Our Tesco distribution started at over 300 stores in 2016, expanding to over 500 in 2017. Ocado are expanding our range to six flavours in April. Our first export listing has been confirmed on January 10th in the Dutch supermarket chain Jumbo, where we will launch three flavours.
In the autumn of 2017 we contracted two branches (UK and NL) of a sales organisation with 25 years of experience and sales teams in 20 countries, Green Seed Group. We have met the German team. We intend to finalise a contract with them at the end of this fund raise and have them begin their sales drive.
Up until now we have focused sales on the major UK supermarkets in the 500ml format. We plan to broaden the scope to include foodservice and other outlets this year, and are planning additional product formats.
Use of proceeds
Proceeds are planned for allocation towards the following goals:
• Launch in the Netherlands.
• Rebrand website and add multiple languages.
• Maximize social media marketing in UK and NL.
• Engage UK PR company Storm PR (http://stormcom.co.uk) for launch of new range in UK.
• Contract Green Seed Germany sales team with retainer.
• Explore opportunities in additional territories, some of which has already begun.
• Complete Kosher Parev certification, the process for which began in 2017.
Market
Target market
Our identified target market is as follows:
• Health conscious families with children: We believe health benefits and the lack of sugars make PW ice creams an great food for children.
• Weight loss diets: PW is suitable for mainstream diet plans that have a combined base of millions of dieters.
• Sports and fitness enthusiasts: We have been contacted and promoted by Instagram influencers ranging from professional body builders to gym fanatics due to the macronutrient profile of PW products.
• Diabetics.
• Vegans and Flexitarians.
• Consumers with food allergies: Celiacs and those with wheat, egg allergies, dairy, lactose intolerance and soya allergies.
• Over 65s: Sweet desserts with no added sugars and health benefits
• Health oriented diets: Our products have a low available carbohydrates, suiting the Atkins and Ketogenic diets.
Characteristics of target market
The ice cream market was worth £1.1bn in 2016 and is projected to reach £1.3bn in sales by 2022. Consumption patterns are changing due to key trends:
'The war on sugar': Public Health England has called for a reduction in sugar consumption as childhood obesity continues to rise (approximately 60% of the adult UK population is now overweight or obese) along with diabetes (It's estimated there are over 4m diabetics in the UK).
Free From food: Penetration is now at 78%, and consumption continues to grow at an accelerated rate (+38.5% in 2017 vs +27% in 2016).
Lifestylers: Drivers of Free From purchases, typically younger shoppers who buy gluten-free and dairy-free for perceived health benefits. They have helped deliver 38.5% value growth to make the category worth more than £800m.
Flexitarians and Vegans: Interest in social responsibility, health and the environment. 542,000 people in the UK follow a vegan diet as of 2017, a 360% increase in the past decade.
Marketing strategy
Our strategy consists of:
Specifically tuned social media message for key consumer groups with highly focused geographical targeting around retail outlets to drive consumers into their local stockists. This has shown great success in the UK and will be repeated in new markets.
Engage our UK based Facebook community of over 94k which we believe consist of consumers that are dieters, fitness fanatics, diabetics, low-carb dieters and those with food intolerances.
Storm PR agency to help spread it to the trade, influencers and consumers via:
- Focus on the unique health properties.
- Trade outreach campaign to ensure cut-through in the grocery retail media, and continual ‘organic’ news for influencers and key opinion formers.
New planned focus on the highly engaged and motivated vegan community who have been very vocal about their desire for us to go vegan over the past few years. Focus on influencers, social media chatrooms, and building word of mouth.
Competition strategy
Our competition strategy is as follows:
• Unique recipes have taken years of development and we do not believe they can be easily replicated.
• Flexibility with our partner factory allows for new product development (NPD) at a rapid rate.
• Combination of numerous USPs not found in other products. As far as we are aware, the number of health benefits has not yet been approached by any other brand.
• We believe our new focused packaging allows simple consumer comparison at point of sale, and clear delivery of our many points of difference.
• Competitive Pricing: RRP £4.49 (shelf prices at retailer's discretion). BnJ vegan range (25+ times our sugar levels) retails for £5.99. USA reduced sugar Halo Top for £5.
• Flavours and inclusions we believe are unique to no added sugar/vegan ice creams. We are adding three new flavours, bringing the range to six: Caramel Pecan, Double Choc Chip, Raspberry Ripple, Pistachio, Mint Choc Chip and Sweet Espresso.
To our knowledge, there is no other Pistachio, Coffee or Raspberry Ripple dairy free or low sugar ice cream in the UK, and we are the first no added sugar Ripple coming to market.
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