SB meets… Double Dutch founders
The founders of mixer brand Double Dutch, twin sisters Raissa and Joyce de Haas, are expanding beyond their UK base, targeting growth in Europe and Asia while tackling margin pressures and strengthening sustainability credentials.
Which markets are the biggest for your portfolio and what’s the best-selling product?
Joyce: The UK is still our home market, where we believe we should build a brand by working with the on-trade. Our key export markets are Belgium, the Netherlands, UAE, Italy, and Denmark. We see growth starting in Asia, which is interesting because it’s a market where premium mixers are still small. There’s a whole shift in consumption where you also see consumers want to premiumise their soft drinks and are going into long drinks and Highballs. We’ve just launched in Singapore and Hong Kong and I think there are lots of markets that are really untouched where we can bring lots of new and exciting ideas to market.
Which markets are untouched?
Joyce: Within Asia, there are still lots of markets where Double Dutch isn’t in. For example, Japan is a really big market. But also South Korea is an interesting market. There’s definitely key markets where we’re not yet in and where there’s more local brands and European brands. Where we see big growth is Romania, Czech Republic, Baltics, Hungary, so I think there is still so much untouched, both for premium mixers as a segment in general, and for Double Dutch.
Has the slowdown in spirits sales impacted your business?
Joyce: No. I think the benefit we have as a mixer brand is that when gin is down, we see, for example, Tequila is up, and we can kind of benefit from a full complementary portfolio of spirits. And not necessarily only hard liquor, but also we work well, for example, over summer with Campari, aperitif-style drinks, and in non-alcoholic cocktails.
Raissa: And we didn’t launch just for gin. So I think that’s been a benefit. When we originally launched, we launched Cucumber and Watermelon, and Pomegranate and Basil, which were two very different style of mixers, both not just for gin.
What are the biggest challenges facing the category and your business?
Raissa: I think the biggest challenges over the past few years has definitely been the rising cost of raw materials and logistics, which has just massively impacted pricing and margins in general. Costs are definitely coming down again, slowly. But there are other challenges on the horizon, like, for example, EPR [extended producer responsibility scheme] and some of the recycling schemes that are coming into play next year – it’s going to probably have quite an effect on margins again.
Joyce: If we look at our competitors, there are competitors that are part of bigger portfolios, and I think they have that benefit. Retailers, for example, that want to consolidate and rationalise their suppliers. So I think it’s a challenge, but I think the biggest challenge by far is the constraint on margins, and that cost over the past couple of years has just really impacted margins for anyone in our category.
How do you mitigate the impact of those cost increases?
Joyce: I think on the one hand, we are unfortunately not in a position where we can dictate pricing with our suppliers, and I think especially consumers in the past 12 months have expected prices to not rise. If we want to go back to our margins pre-2022 we should still be increasing our pricing. So I think that is one part to it. But I think how we mitigate it is by trying to negotiate longer-term contacts with suppliers, to lock in prices with our suppliers, but also diversifying our supplier base.
We’ve always been super hospitality-focused, and not really retail. The benefit of hospitality is that we have such a diverse base of customers. And then just working on economies of scale and driving our cost down by increasing our volumes and improving our supply chain efficiencies, looking at, for example, our logistics and warehousing. Where can we make it more efficient? Where can we minimise ways to reduce excess stock and improve our cash flow?
Joyce: We are now, for example, the lowest weighted bottle on the market, which is great for sustainability efforts, but it also actually helps on our logistic and warehousing costs. Those kinds of things are strong efficiencies that we can build, that really are core to the vision that we have on sustainability, but still improve on our margins as well. Hopefully we can find more of those type of efficiencies in our supply chain.
Are you looking at ways to diversify the business, like moving into other categories?
Raissa: We are definitely always looking at NPD and new products, but premium soft drinks are definitely our core and our focus is 100% what we are currently doing. So I don’t see us going into spirits, but anything that is broadly non-alcoholic, definitely.
How has the business benefitted since gaining investment from the Heineken family?
Raissa: It’s definitely helped us quite a lot. The association with them has helped with credibility in the market. After Covid, there was so much uncertainty. With the shift towards bigger companies and corporates, that credibility part has helped us, and I think it gives a signal to customers or partners that we are a serious player. But I think what’s been the most helpful for us internally is their access to industry expertise and their networks – they come with such a wealth of industry knowledge and expertise into scaling and distribution and operational strategies on the export side as well. Their network has really opened a lot of doors for us, especially on the distribution side of things. Thirdly, financial stability and the capital has helped support our vision to grow. So it’s been super beneficial for us.
Are you looking at other ways to improve your sustainability ethos?
Raissa: We deceased 30% of our plastic in our outer cartons. We use more recycled and recyclable materials, both in our cans, but also, for example, in the carton and the labels we use. Since 2020, we’ve offset our carbon footprint and we became B Corp-certified earlier this year. That’s been really helpful also to hold ourselves accountable. So I think now it’s much more integrated into everything we do as a company, for example, ordering POS material, never taking a flight, but always using Eurostar.
How are you improving your female bartending scheme every year?
Joyce: We started in 2020 and we nurture 12 talents within the industry on their next career move. We’re doing lots of training on flavours and bartending, but also looking at what is life beyond bartending, how to think about your mental health, how you profile yourself if you ever want to go to into the brand side, for example, rather than the hospitality side. This year was the first year that we were properly able to do lots of face-to-face trainings. The nice thing is that these 12 students, they really become family. There’s just so much to be done for women in hospitality and within drinks in general, that I’m really passionate about making it like much more of an inclusive place, as much as we can add to it.
Have you got any specific goals that you’d like to achieve in the future?
Raissa: We have financial goals and plans, but overall, we just want to be recognised as the go-to premium mixer brand for flavourful mixers. Our mission is not only to expand our presence in existing markets, but also to drive distribution and deeper distribution in our core five markets. So that’s UK, and then Belgium, Netherlands are kind of secondary markets, as well as UAE, Denmark and Italy.
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