Healthier snacking brand Olly’s has smashed its crowdfunding target, bringing in more than £1m to develop its presence in the major mults.
Founded by Olly Hiscocks in 2016, the business recently launched into Asda, Tesco and Holland & Barrett, adding to listings with Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Waitrose, Co-op, Whole Foods and Boots.
Its olives and pretzels are also stocked by wholesale foodservice supplier Brakes, pub group Stonegate and airlines EasyJet, Ryanair and British Airways, as well as in 15 countries overseas.
Olly’s launched the funding campaign on the Seedrs platform to raise £850k, which valued the business at £10m. It has now raised in excess of £1m from more than 200 investors, with the pitch continuing to overfund.
It plans to invest in marketing to grow distribution further and develop its prominence with retail partners, as well as hiring commercial staff, scaling the DTC business, expanding further overseas and exploring NPD at its new production facility.
“We’ve always been focused on creating snacks that have health at the heart and deliver flavour to the full,” Hiscocks told The Grocer.
“Having grown to a community of millions of Olly’s snackers, with over 10,000 stocking points, we’ll be utilising this investment to expand our recipe for success by bringing more snacks to more people in more places around the world.”
To date, Olly’s has achieved total revenues of £4m, surpassing the whole of 2021’s sales in the first seven months of 2022.
Originally known as Olly’s Olives, the brand sought to transform the olive market with the launch of unpasteurised snack pouches.
When the pandemic hit, the business decided to diversify further in the snacking category, with a range of nuts mixes, pretzel thins and chocolate-covered pretzels launching throughout 2020 and 2021.
“With an exciting NPD pipeline in place, they’ll be more snacks and feel good coming out of Olly’s HQ in 2023 and beyond,” Hiscocks added.
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