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Hello and welcome to the Future of Business Podcast. I'm your host, Allison McArthur.
In this episode we'll be talking to two leaders who are bringing their philosophy to the soda industry.
Simon Cody and his team set up Comic Cola in New Zealand in 2012 and produced Fairtrade organic sodas with hip artsy labels.
At the heart of the company is a simple idea to make a product that truly gives
back to the communities who produce it and empowers them to build a better future.
A portion of the profits from each bottle sold goes back to the tea community in Sierra Leone for local projects through the Comic Cola Foundation,
chaired by Albert Tucker. We recently caught up with Albert and Simon here in Oxford.
Welcome and thank you for joining us. Thank you. So we just dive right in.
I was wondering, Simon, if you could tell us a little bit about how the idea for Comic Cola came to you?
From my place on a beach in New Zealand was the discovery of each good thing, standing between two close friends and business partners.
And I were thinking about what we should do next.
Chris Morrison, who has had a business called Phoenix Organics and was a pioneer in organic soft drinks in New Zealand.
His brother Matt and I were kind of at a crossroads, I suppose.
I'd just finished working for a company that sold to Bacardi and thinking about what to do
next and had been in the Army and in the Treasury and was about ready to do something new.
And we had oh, we're all interested in the idea of kind of business as an as a way of doing good as well as being profitable.
So it was kind of part of the conversation we'd been having.
And Chris had been in Samoa and seen that there was great organic produce growing there that wasn't making it to market.
And and I having heard that, I thought I wouldn't mind helping do that.
It'd be an interesting thing to do. We learned that we're probably not that good at importing fresh produce because we hadn't done it before.
We had a lot of rotten bananas to deal with, but we soon learned that there's a big demand for kind of purpose led ethical,
sustainable produce in New Zealand and that it was kind of untapped.
So fast forward a few years and we had a business that was selling Fairtrade bananas.
It gave us confidence to do something else, which is where we met Albert and had this idea that the way we could explain our
value to customers was by way of a virtuous circle that they were supporting,
not just the environment that these products came from,
but the people that were growing them and that they their purchase would be beneficial all the way through their virtuous circle.
And the idea of karma came out of that,
that that kind of explains in a good shorthand what we're trying to achieve commercially and ultra altruistically.
We thought that kind of a call. It sounded quite good. It was the sort of name that led to the idea of the time.
And because we'd been looking at other products and that was a sort of prefix to it karma coconut, karma, chocolate, kind coffee.
But Carmichael was the one we thought, You know what? This is probably the most consumed consumer good in the world.
Wouldn't it be great to create a contrast, you know, as something that, you know, soft drinks aren't that great.
You know, they are things we love, but they're not essential.
You know, if you're thirsty, water's pretty good for hydration.
But if you want to, you know, enjoy the taste of something, then soft drinks are quite good.
But we thought, why couldn't we make these things do good as well as taste good?
And that's where the idea came from. And Alex, you grew up in Sierra Leone and you've worked in factory products for some time now.
What brought you to Tacoma Cola? Well, actually started, you know, had been through a really particularly nasty ten year war.
And I'd been spending some time trying to promote business with Turn in the Business for good,
a business that would help and growth and redevelopment.
So talking to different communities that when I heard I was contacted by the guys from New Zealand saying,
you want to do this company that wants to do good as well as deliver.
And so for me that was just the perfect. And then they were looking, you know, trying to find a source of colourants.
And of course, I grew up in West Africa very familiar with nuts.
And it was an opportunity for some communities in Sierra Leone to engage with a business that actually intends to actually contribute something back.
So it was really easy decision. Who made Makary.
And in fact, when we started, we had conversations and agreed to what we were going to do and went and did it,
that there were no contracts or formal agreements.
We just going in there and and and then six months later, there was a drink that was fantastic tasting drink,
which the communities loved to be part of and is one of the few, if not only drink that product in the supermarket, you can look a premium product.
You can look at that has said and acknowledge it's an ingredient from.
Leone Absolutely. SIMON You've mentioned that it's important that organisations give communities like these a hand up rather than a hand out.
And as you mentioned, all that light to eyes, a community that had to deal with some terrible struggles in recent history.
Do you think bringing trade to these communities sort of helps them to rebuild and bring stability?
From our own experience, it definitely seems to be doing that.
I think there's a level of engagement that's really important to understand in the way we're trying to do this,
that we have had to have first hand relationships with producers,
that we're not trying to use the idea of doing good as a label on the outside of our product,
as much as being intrinsic in the way we behave as an organisation.
So, you know, one of the things that that gives us is the right to talk, you know,
reasonably intimately about the people that we work with there, which is part of the story that help sell our products.
What we're saying is that because we right from the start thought that we can't treat this as charity,
we can't be just putting money into a community without seeing it create independence.
So the idea of trade is really important. Even if we're not buying an enormous amount of quality of quantity of cola,
we're making sure that it is a really strong relationship in terms of the commercial benefit to both us and them and the fund that we've created.
And the independent organisation, the Chemical, a foundation that Albert chairs,
is primarily interested in helping them become independent of that from us,
which is kind of an anathema because commercially we really want to be connected to them so we can tell the story and sell the drinks.
But for the foundation to be successful, these guys should be able to do it without us ultimately.
So that's the interesting contract. So what's great is that we have programs there that are instigated by the benefactors, not by us.
They come to us with an idea like the original thing we did was pay for a bridge to be built.
They built it. You know, the foreman was someone in the village.
We only had to supply a kind of bare minimum of of funds and materials and intent for them to get on with it.
And as long as we follow that pattern, it seems to be quite successful.
And can you tell us a little bit about the story behind the bridge?
When we started, it only started when we found out that really the major brands in the world with a name cornering them no longer use Kola nuts.
So you find that's why I call them nuts. A lot of valuable commodity.
They're very locally used and we thought, well, if we're going to be true to the karma in the company,
let's create a way to contribute to the development of these communities.
So they do well as well. So that's where the foundation came from.
And when we initially got the foundation off the ground, the thought of more we've learned,
we said we want the community to drive this, not us, from London and New Zealand.
So they had a committee that was already there working on conservation of asylum to Ireland, and so we engaged with them.
And then the first thing they wanted us to do in the main village, we headquarters village, their villages,
collaborating in the headquarter village, they said actually they think that would be fantastic for us as a bridge.
And, you know, nowadays we talk about the bridge being symbolic and metaphorical, but my first reaction was a bridge.
Really, that's the best we can do. We need something like actually that village in the in the winter months gets split into two.
So two halves of the village come in. Families are across that bridge.
So you either have to swim across this river tributary or you don't performance got cross with
the villages isolated so and also things like democratic process doesn't happen as well.
The chiefs kind of get there if somebody is able to kind of get them out of the village and that kind of thing.
So it made sense. So we built it and then we said, well, you know, could you help us with bus three so girls to go to school.
So again, it's not a quest. This is an interrogation iterative relationship, which is one of the strength of it.
They wanted us to form bus routes. We're going to school. And Switzerland were saying, well, shouldn't you be sending girls to school anyway?
And they said, Well, no, look, if a family can only send some of their children to school,
they will send the boys and actually nearly all communities.
This is what has happened. So. So what if you.
My devices will make sure that the families who can't afford it can get girls to school as well.
And that's what they've done. So the relationship is quite a symbiotic one.
So how do you bring this story to consumers?
You know, this there's sort of the coal industry isn't a new industry,
despite the fact you've mentioned, you know, the big players don't actually have that as an ingredient.
Which is which is really interesting is something I certainly didn't know and I imagine most consumers aren't aware of.
How do you compete in this in this market? So we've got a lot to tell, as you've heard.
But we only have in a similar market point 3 seconds to get that across.
So we have to rely on first just the packaging.
The thing you mentioned earlier that catching someone's attention visually is a really good way to start.
And contrasting or delighting people with an illustration, which is what we've done with our packages, is a really good way to catch them.
And if we if we look good, then I think we've invited people to taste the product.
The next thing that has to happen in that whole customer experience is that it's got to taste correct
because we don't have the right to ask them to buy us again unless they've enjoyed the first experience.
So that sample is so important.
So we put a lot of stock into the quality of the ingredients and the recipe and the way we present that in the way people taste it.
I can testify not to be delicious. I'm only setting up to do some of the stuff trying to make my way through it.
So if we got those first two things right,
then hopefully we can tell them the story because we've got their attention and engaged in a way that should give us the right to to,
to to tell a little bit more. And as I say, there's so much we could say.
So the important thing is that they understand that having bought the product, they've actually done some good, but that it's not just an indulgence.
This pleasure beyond your own satisfaction and there might be some of the help is high you
know the satisfaction that comes from knowing that you've been of assistance to someone else.
So we're trying to say a soft drink, which is not a non-essential thing,
can be an act in that idea that that that a company like us can take responsibility
for more than just generating value out of something they produce for themselves,
that it can go further than that in a social, environmental and hopefully a comic way.
What we're trying to do is make that kind of aethereal idea much more tangible, because I believe that if you've got that far,
someone will want to share that story so people understand the transaction and feel good about it and enjoy it.
You know, chances are they'll share it and if they share it, then we're winning.
Yeah. Bringing the message and the magic of the planet to the rest of the world.
So. So we ask people, just join us. Absolutely. And you've developed somewhat something of a cult following.
I sense that customers we mentioned tatty high price the character.
We should go into your ginger beer labels.
How did that start and how do you think so?
Honestly, it started because, you know, the first thing, the first product we made, Kama Cola.
I tried to design a kind of comical IT label and it was really bad.
So I thought,
I better get some people who are not who I can work with and know a bit more about this to kind of figure out how do we make this really engaging.
And we looked at lots of different ways of talking about this idea.
And the story that really got us going was in the river near the village that we principally trade with is a spirit called Mummy Water.
She visited a chief of the Village Seven Chiefs ago and suggested in the in the chief sleep that if he didn't make the next chief a woman,
they'd be trouble. And since then, every chief has been a woman.
Now, the story was just great entwined with this, the idea of cola being, you know,
a ritual ingredient in the friendship and the socialising of the community.
It sort of felt like if we could get that visually on the thing, just to be an interpretation doesn't have to be literal.
We've got we've got a starting point. The other thing I thought that was really interesting is the idea of karma being good and bad and that,
you know, in our ingredients is things like sugar that that that, you know, you don't overindulge in.
But also there's this karmic property of the transaction doing some good somewhere else.
I quite like that tension that we saw and in some of the research, a little Mexican retired,
like the sort of votive paintings that you have made for for for strangely mundane miracles.
So, you know, you break your leg, inhale. You get one of these things voted votive paintings made to Our Lady of Guadalupe.
And you know. I'd seen one, and it was the devil chasing an angel.
And it just looked great and looked like the sort of folk thing that would represent this mummy water.
And there was another thing that we saw, which was a. Just a snake itself with the words written around the outside.
What goes around comes around.
And we thought, you know, that tension again that you give and you get that if you have this idea that you should be treated as you treat people,
that these sorts of, you know, common, you know, fundamental social ideas could be embraced in something that really isn't necessary.
Yeah, that that tension is kind of interesting. So that's where we started, kind of complicated,
but it turned into this great little drawing of a mermaid chasing a devil mermaid and Miami Water in its principal personality.
Her personality is both good and bad. If you don't behave, she'll admonish you.
And if you do, you'll be rewarded. And that's rivers are like that.
They give life and they take love. Storms are like that.
You know that. The kind of mythology of the water spirits. So it all made sense to us and turned into this great little drawing.
So that was where it started. You know, that looks fantastic. And it's got caramel colour on it.
Maybe that'll work. Not the most obvious way to package a fast moving consumer.
Good, but it worked because it caught people on an emotional kind of level,
and then it gave us the opportunity to hopefully get to taste it and then find out more.
We then tried to do the next one because we had one drink.
We need to fill a shelf and a fridge, which was ginger, ginger, ginger ale.
And we got Beth who did that initial drawing to have a crack at us with us
thinking about the ginger that comes from Sri Lanka and there are tigers there.
And so we came out with a whole lot of other characters, but they looked so much like the first one.
They kind of made the first one less important and we thought, Why don't we just do this differently?
And one of the woman we were working with for her said, I had a thought for a great name, ginger ale.
And as soon as she said that, I thought, that's great. You know, all we have to do is find out what ginger ale looks like.
So we had this process, which was a bit like us trying to create a mona Lisa, and that was kind of an enigmatic thing.
They had to take form and ginger ale. It became this kind of homage to a, you know, creatively fiery personality with red hair.
So she's got a thing that this stuff, you know, sits on supermarket shelves and in people's cafes, but people have adopted it.
So ginger ale has come back to us as tattoos. So is that lemonade living in Lebanon?
Come back to us as murals for someone silkscreened it on a speaker.
You know, there are there are big posters.
There are dream catchers. The redhead community has adopted her.
There's a woman called Emer Kelly who writes a blog called Ginger Parrot, who is a staunch advocate for people with real hair and fantastic with it.
And she celebrated Red Hair Day, which happened to be the same day that Prince Harry chose to get married.
And we made an homage to the royal wedding and had a ginger fella on a bottle.
So this there's a lot of scope for us to have fun with that, with the drinks.
That's that's great fun. So, you know, you've done very well over the last few years.
You've sold 12 million drinks in 23 countries.
What are your plans for further expansion?
And is it is a challenge to grow in a sustainable way, ensuring that, you know,
the whole supply chain is it's we've been successful in engaging with a very specific type of customer,
like in cafes or great fast casual dining restaurants like on US burgers like Byron Light Tortilla Caravan or some that would be here after work.
We're in Waterstones in Oxford, they're in Waitrose. All these places have similar values to us,
and that's been our way of kind of getting into these sales channels because it's this highly contested shelf space or meaning space.
And the challenge is to broaden that that base.
And it's it's a really interesting one, both commercially and kind of from a marketing point of view,
because we have this fan base that are pretty well defined and we'd like to grow
it and we can't really spend a [INAUDIBLE] of a lot on marketing to do it.
We've got because we put that money back into the communities we work with.
So, you know, it's a kind of our success has as a sort of double edged sword.
Can we get is growth going to be helpful? We think it will.
You know, hopefully the more drinks we sell, the more good we can do. So now our challenge is to try and get it broader distribution at a premium.
And you know, what we've come up against is that when we've got a, you know, 30% to 50 to 100% premium against our competition,
we've got to justify that, which is what marketing is mostly about saying if you.
Or a premium product, you really do need to be able to substantiate your brand.
So that's our challenge, is to have more people know about it for them on that note.
But Simon, thanks so much for joining us today. It's been a real pleasure.
Thanks. Thank you, as always for listening to the Future of Business podcast.
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