Cherrygood, the first ready to drink cherry juice drink has been shortlisted as New Product of the Year in the prestigious Growing Business Awards.
From a standing start, Cherrygood has enjoyed enormous success to quickly establish itself as the fastest growing juice company in the UK.
Juice and smoothie sales may have dropped by £114m over the past two years, but Cherrygood is completely bucking the trend, achieving sales of £1.2million between April 2009 and April 2010 and ripening entrepreneur John Heseltine’s appetite for further growth.
The drink has rapidly secured listings across all of the major supermarkets (Asda, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose) which is incredibly unusual and extremely hard to secure, because the market is fiercely competitive.
There are three products in the range – Cherrygood Original, Cherrygood Light and Cherry & Berry. Both one litre variants are available in all major supermarkets, recommended retail price: £1.39.
In a short space of time the company has become so well respected by the supermarkets that they are working with them to develop new products. Growth is expected to more than double, with a predicted turnover of £2.5m.
This success has come despite a lack of support from the high street banks, which were all dismissive of the idea and turned down funding requests for £500,000 to launch the business.
Cherries contain more antioxidants than any other fruit and are said to help prevent insomnia and to slow down the ageing process. Although unknown to the average consumer, these health benefits have been seized upon by John Heseltine, who founded Cherrygood.
It is a healthy product with a great taste and it is helping to shake up the breakfast habits of the nation.