Naturbursche | Overview

We, Britta Henkelmann and Dagmar Hemschenherm, are two entrepreneurs from the German city of Wiesbaden. Having worked for large companies for many years, we wanted to make a difference to people's diets. In other words, we wanted to enable people to drink delicious iced tea without sacrificing taste, adding sugar, or adding artificial sweeteners.

 How we did that? We simply used stevia plant extracts, which have been used in many countries for centuries and were approved as a sweetener by the EU in late 2011. Even though we did not launch Naturbursche stevia iced tea on the German market until 01 April 2014, it has already become a success story. Within only 14 months, we have acquired customers such as dm drugstores, Müller drugstores, and HIT in addition to several hundred Edeka and Rewe supermarkets, so Naturbursche is currently available in more than 2,500 stores in Germany and Austria (as of 30 June 2015).

The fact that our product clearly benefits customers and that our brand has a clear focus has caused roughly 70 % of all customers who have purchased Naturbursche to purchase it again and drink it several times a week.

Naturbursche stevia iced tea is available in 500 ml Tetra Paks and in two different flavors: white tea/cherry and green tea/lime. Having tried countless recipes of both flavors, we came up with their final versions on New Year's Eve 2013. Naturbursche stevia iced tea is the drink of choice for all people who value a healthy lifestyle, suffer from diabetes or fructose malabsorption, or prefer a low-carb diet and want to avoid using sweeteners like Aspartame. Moreover, Naturbursche is vegan, thus providing the growing number of vegans with a healthy beverage alternative.

A classic consumer product for grocery retail and drugstores, Naturbursche stevia iced tea generates revenue primarily through sales in such stores. In addition, we plan to focus on selling Naturbursche stevia iced tea at gas stations, to-go stores, and outdoor restaurants, for instance at swimming pools, beach clubs, saunas, and in spa areas.

During production, we benefit from the expertise of various large companies: We purchase raw materials from Döhler in Darmstadt, one of the world's most renowned commodity traders. We get our packaging from Tetra Pak, a company located near Wiesbaden. We purchase both the Tetra Paks and the raw materials in increasing quantities in order to keep reducing unit costs continuously. The Naturbursche Tetra Paks are filled up by Güldenkron, a contractor in the Westerwald region, so that we are able to fully focus on the marketing and sale of Naturbursche stevia iced tea. In terms of filling, volumes also grow from order to order, which enables us to achieve constant price reductions in this area as well.

Our far-sighted and professional purchasing and production strategy ensures that our margin is constantly increasing and has reached an average of 120 to 180 percent, depending on the customer. Naturbursche stevia iced tea is also available online, but we do not handle online sales ourselves because of the high logistics costs involved. Instead, we ship pallets of our products to specialized online retailers, for instance to Frusano (www.frusano.com).

Naturbursche stevia iced tea is the only iced tea that is sweetened using stevia plant extracts, so we are a trailblazer within the stevia iced tea market and have created the original stevia iced tea brand.

Stevia is a plant native to the highlands of Paraguay and Brazil that lowers blood sugar, prevents dental plaque, and – unlike sugar – is completely free of calories, yet three hundred times as sweet as sugar in its extracted form. The stevia plant's sweet and slightly licorice-like taste is due to glycosides, that is, steviol glycosides, inside the leaves, which are ten to thirty times as sweet as sugar, depending on the region where the plant grows and this region's climate. Stevia is grown worldwide, also in Europe, and has been known as a healthy sugar substitute for a long time. Since the mid-seventies of the last century, the stevia plant has been used as a healthy sweetener in a growing number of countries; for instance, stevia covers more than half of the Japanese market for sweeteners today.

The only existing stevia iced tea brand on the German market, we are in the comfortable position of not facing any direct competition. Consequently, as long as no other stevia iced teas are introduced to the market, we believe our main competitors are sugar-free iced teas containing artificial sweeteners, for example "Lipton Zero," "Nestea Sugarfree," and "Pfanner Light."

As early as during the first year, we convinced many customers of our product. Indeed, we are collaborating with various independent Edeka and Rewe supermarkets and started a partnership with drugstore chain dm in Germany in January and a partnership with drugstore chain Müller in Germany and Austria in mid-May this year.

Moreover, Naturbursche has been added to the product range of the Rewe-West headquarters in late May 2015 so that we gained a total of more than 2,500 points of sale in Germany and Austria within one year. We have been provided with perfect testimonials for Naturbursche by men and women from the fitness and sports industry and by famous people to whom a sugar-free diet is important, for instance by Siggi and Mareike Spaleck.

"As renowned fitness coaches for celebrities and other people, owners of exclusive fitness clubs, and international fitness models, we naturally pay attention to a healthy diet consisting of as little sugar and chemical additives as possible. Naturbursche stevia iced tea is not only part of our daily diet, but also a product that we gladly recommend to our clients and fitness club members. In fact, we and the rest of the fitness industry have been waiting for a product like Naturbursche stevia iced tea," say Siggi and Mareike Spaleck, VIP coaches, personal trainers, and fitness models.

Our core target group consists of families, diabetics, athletes, vegans, people suffering from fructose malabsorption, people following a low-carb diet, and people who want to or have to follow a sugar-free diet. As a result, we estimate that we may sell up to 96 million products in Germany each year.

If a company plans to introduce a new beverage brand to the market and wants to ensure this brand's fast and sustainable success, it needs to possess the necessary experience and competence in this industry. In fact, the success of a new product depends largely on good contacts with the right purchasers and on experience in the industry.

Team

Britta Henkelmann is the co-founder and head of sales of Naturbursche. Her hands-on approach has helped her attract new customers from day one, and her long experience in the beverage industry and contacts with decision-makers have helped her convince even major companies such as dm and Müller of Naturbursche.

Dagmar Hemschenherm is the CFO and co-founder of Naturbursche. She supervises the accounting, controlling, and purchasing departments. Because of her long experience in major companies, she is in charge of important processes and, using her negotiation skills, ensures that we can purchase raw materials at reasonable prices.

Christoph Landmann is our head of marketing and PR. A creative visionary, he is in charge of our marketing activities and of corporate communications. He uses the experience he gained during the market launch of numerous brands to find innovative and unique ways of increasing Naturbursche sales.

Partners

Because of our unique Naturbursche concept, we have been supported by very strong partners from day one. Tetra Pak, one of the world's largest manufacturers of ecologically sustainable packaging, has been advising us from the beginning and is supporting us in the production of our innovative packaging. We would also like to thank Kastner & Partners agency, which is collaborating with Red Bull as well. This agency's managing director, Christian Daul, serves as our sparring partner and has been actively supporting our idea development processes.

Current Status

• Within 14 months, we reached our ambitious goal of making our products available to consumers in more than 2,500 stores in Germany and Austria.
• Roughly 70 % of Naturbursche customers buy our products again and consume them several times a week.

Objectives for the Next 3-5 Years

• Within the next three to five years, we want to make Naturbursche widely available through the most important retail partners (including gas stations) in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.
• We want to ensure that Naturbursche remains the original stevia iced tea and to further establish it within this market segment.
• We want 20 % of people in our target group to drink Naturbursche at least once a month.
• We want to implement a concept for the restaurant industry.

We have successfully launched the Naturbursche brand on the market and have already achieved rapid growth. Our next step will be the improvement of our position within the market. We are sure that we will thus attract the attention of renowned companies, and we are open to offers concerning the addition of our products to another company's product range or the acquisition of our entire company.

We need the capital raised via Companisto to support our company's rapid growth. To be more precise, we will use this capital to build up a sales force in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland; to increase our national and international marketing activities; and to increase our PR activities in the above countries.

If we reach or exceed €100,000, we plan to

1. hire a sales representative for the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia,
2. host another 40 promotion events in our customers' stores (i.e., in supermarkets), and
3. produce sales displays (eye-catchers) and refrigerators for product placement in stores.

If we reach or exceed €250,000, we plan to

               do the things listed under items 1-3 and

1. hire three additional sales representatives to cover the most important urban areas in Germany (Hamburg, Berlin, and Munich),
2. produce Naturbursche advertising flyers to attract additional major customers from the retail industry, thus ensuring distribution of our product through another 2,000 stores, and
3. design and produce an exhibition stand for national and international trade shows, for instance for Anuga, Fibo, Biofach, etc.

If we reach or exceed €400,000, we plan to

               do the things listed under items 1-6 and

1. focus on targeted consumer marketing within our target group through advertorials and online banners in order to increase sales in stores and
2. make agreements with freelance sales representatives and merchandisers in order to access new sales channels within important markets in Germany (northern Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, and Lower Saxony) and make our products available in another 1,500 stores.

Naturbursche Getränke GmbH

Christof-Ruthof-Weg 6

55252 Mainz-Kastel

Web: www.naturbursche-deutschland.de

E-Mail: home@naturbursche-deutschland.de 

Tel: 0611 181 721 92