Q&A with the Founder of CleanCo
Why do you think CleanCo has had such a successful launch in the US? Was the US market as you expected it to be? We all know that the UK market is farther ahead in normalizing alcohol free options. Do you think the speed in which the US market is catching up is increasing?
The US has been a challenging but exciting one to crack - each state is like a separate market with a different approach needed so it’s kept the marketing team on their toes, but it’s also driven us all to learn as much as we can along the way and grow as a team. The US is catching up fast and I think the reason we are doing so well is the width of our range and the work we put into education around our products which, simply put, are direct replacements for the full-strength spirits people have been enjoying for years.
How is CleanCo different from everything else on the market?
We continually invest in innovation to push the quality and comparison to alcohol of our products forward, but on top of that - we have fun doing it! We don’t try and replicate the advertising you see from heavily-legislated alcohol brands, we can be more daring, scrappier and challenge the norms. Our Life Less Wasted campaign focuses on the positives in your life that you can focus more effort on by reframing your relationship with alcohol, which I think most people can relate to, but also gives you a solution to wanting the elevated sensation of a delicious cocktail.
Which spirit did you find to be the hardest to replicate the same drinking experience as its alcoholic counterpart? How does one replicate the mouthfeel and burn of a traditional alcoholic drink?
We launch Whiskey into the market soon, and that has been harder to replicate due to the traditional barrel ageing that forms a huge part of the making whisky process. This element is where the flavor really develops and we can’t leverage that, so we have to create a natural alternative by taking flavors from wood and fruits to give us a similar profile.
As I said we are constantly innovating across both new and existing liquids at CleanCo and our incredible product development team make incredible advancements and discoveries all the time to help us get to a place where the difference between non-alc and full strength is indistinguishable. What are those discoveries? If I told you I’d be in trouble with the product development team!
We all know how important data and listening to customers is. How have your customers impacted the brand's discussions?
Massively. Being such a new category means it’s essential to be plugged into projections that show how people are likely to purchase our products. This fuels your product strategy, and means we can deliver based on demand. We also have a really loyal community across social media who are frequent purchasers of the brand and they often offer really great feedback about what they want to see and how we can improve. It’s so important to listen to your customers and build up a two-way dialogue.
Everyone at Better Rhodes are huge CleanCo fans. We are guessing you have some fun surprises ahead. What does the future of CleanCo look like?
World domination! Our goal is to see a bottle in every household in the markets we are in, and for people to be able to walk into any bar and request their favorite cocktail ‘made clean’. We want no and low drinking to become an accepted norm and to see our fans thriving because they can go out and enjoy all the social experiences they always have, while winning back the morning.
Thank you to CleanCo for taking the time to answer our questions. Shop all CleanCo products here.