Member Article

Richard Baister discusses setting up SUMO Drinks

Here at SUMO Drinks there has certainly been plenty going on. For the past three years we have been developing and fine tuning our new calorie burning soft drink. It works using natural ingredients that raise the body’s metabolic rate for about three hours after consumption, meaning that it is actually a negative calorie drink. We are immensely proud of SUMO and in August the product was launched in Ireland, with the test launch quickly becoming a ten year deal with an Irish distributor.

However, this launch was the culmination of three years of development time. There has been an immense amount of work behind the scenes, putting together the natural functional recipe, working out which flavours to go with, fine tuning brand concepts and cooperating closely with our funding partners.

No matter how much work went into the drink pre launch, things are only getting busier – and we would be disappointed if they weren’t. We have had a huge volume of trade enquiries from distributors across the world, all wanting to find out how they could obtain the rights to sell SUMO in their local markets and we expect to sign contracts for a number of territories in Q4 of 2011.

We were extremely happy to be shortlisted for the Real Business Future 50, which is a list of the most exciting new companies in the UK across all sectors. The shortlist was put together within days of our first ever full production run, so to be considered so early in the trading life of the business was a real honour - and we hope a sign of the potential of the business.

In terms of how SUMO as a business fits into the current economic landscape, we are fortunate that since we are export focused we aren’t reliant on the fortunes of any one market. Indeed, many people seem to think I’ve lost my mind when I tell them that the UK market isn’t our priority, but personally I have often found overseas markets to be more receptive to new product concepts and quite honestly I find the direct manner of many foreign business people refreshing. Little time is wasted with red tape, brutal honesty prevails and decisions are made. That’s my kind of approach.

As a business which is positioning itself to deal across various continents mobile communications are our lifeblood and make managing the time zones much easier – without this we would have to contemplate someone literally manning an office overnight if we wanted to make any real progress. One little fascination for me has been watching the Google Analytics stats for sumodrinks.com and seeing the rate of visits build, along with the variety of nations these hits are coming from – 37 different countries as of this morning.

So, we’re off to a busy start and will be doing all we can to keep the momentum going. You can find out more at www.sumodrinks.com

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Richard Baister .