Dash Water has no plans to enter the growing market for functional soft drinks, its founders have said.
Speaking as Dash unveiled its latest billboard campaign calling out the use of artificial sweeteners in soft drinks, co-founder and CMO Jack Scott said the sparkling water challenger was instead focused on growing sales via new occasions, pack sizes and limited-edition flavours.
“The beauty of Dash is that it is a really simple product,” he said. “People understand [the concept of] the sparkling water infused with wonky fruit. As a growing brand we have to be really careful about [not diluting] that proposition.”
Functional drinks such as CBD beverages, kombuchas and prebiotic sodas are helping drive sales in the soft drinks category. Market research from Mintel and Kantar revealed functional beverages grew by over 30% in 2024, outpacing the 2%-3% growth seen in traditional soft drinks.
In the US, meanwhile, functional soft drinks demand is equally buoyant, prompting PepsiCo to splash $2bn to acquire Poppi – a low-calorie soft drinks brand with added prebiotics – last month.
Functional soft drinks growth prospects
Functional soft drinks was “a really big trend” in the US, but some way from scaling similar heights in the UK, Scott said.
“You can see with hard seltzers, for instance, that was a category that worked in the US and didn’t work here,” he said. “With all these categories, if you’re just taking it and putting it in the UK there is a risk of it not being picked up by consumers in the same way.
“You’ve got to remember that the likes of Olipop and Poppi were marketing geniuses that have really managed to ignite the category, but in the UK there is still a long way to go.”
Dash’s NPD efforts would therefore consist of more sparkling flavoured waters that ape popular soft drinks flavours such cherry and orange, Scott said.
“It’s about bringing new consumers in who may have been drinking mainstream soft drinks like Pepsi Max Cherry or Coca-Cola Zero Cherry,” he said. “That nostalgic soft drinks play will allow us to continue to bring in new, younger consumers.”
Dash billboard stunt
Scott’s comments came as Dash unveiled an interactive billboard outside Shepherd’s Bush underground station. The billboard seeks to raise awareness of the health risks posed by artificial sweeteners, as flagged by the World Health Organization in 2023.
When the ad is viewed with a pair of filtered glasses, a hidden message “exposing the secrets the industry doesn’t want consumers to see” is revealed.
“It’s about telling consumers what is already there so they can make a decision,” Scott said. “We are poking the bear but we are doing it tactically by showing people there is a healthier alternative.”
Founded by Scott and Alex Wright in 2017, Dash Water now employs 34 people and has an annual turnover of £40m. Its drinks are stocked in nearly 10,000 distribution points from Tesco to Waitrose.
To date it has raised more than £20m in fundraising, with high-profile backers including Johnny Sexton, Patrice Evra, David Milner and James Watt.
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