Blog

• Publication: The Grocer
  
• Publication date: 13th January 2007
  
• Product: O2GO
• Company: Santeau
  
• Launch date: January 2007

Making a mark in the burgeoning and fiercely competitive soft drinks category is
not an easy task, but then neither is running a 150-mile six-day adventure race
across the Sahara desert. This, however, has not prevented Jonathan Yates, the
man behind O2GO, from having a go at both challenges.

The O2GO range, which consists of vitamin-enriched flavourings made to add
interest to plain water, is this month making its retail debut in Sainsbury's.
It is being positioned as an alternative to fizzy soft drinks and branded
waters. Each two-calorie pouch is enough to flavour 500m1 of water and contains
a blend of vitamins and an antioxidant. It is aimed at consumers who find water
bland and boring but who are still keen to reach their recommended two litres a
day quota, and who want to get more than hydration when quenching their thirst.

"I had seen people adding Vitamin C and Berocca tablets to bottled water, but
when I tried this myself, the froth bubbled up over the bottle making a sticky
mess."

"The horse-sized tablets were also a problem and had to be broken in half just
to get into the neck, with crumbs going everywhere," said Yates, who came up
with the idea for the newcomer when struggling to drink the six litres of water
recommended per day when training for the Marathon Des Sables.

Yates expects the newcomer to clock up first-year sales of more than £1.3m
across all its sales channels, including the web, foodservice and retail.

"We have had many approaches for own label NPD in both mix sachets form and more
recently also for readyto-drink functional offerings," said Yates. "Consumers
love the theatre of creating their own magic drink from refilling water bottles
with tap or cooler water rather than buying an expensive branded product, which
also adds to the PET waste mountain."

Before setting up Santeau in 2004 in his spare room, Yates spent 12 years
working in IT selling corporate planning systems. The company, which outsources
the majority of its marketing and manufacturing activities, now employs four
people.

Eureka is a monthly column looking at companies that are at the cutting edge of
new product development.