In this exclusive podcast – recorded at the Flavour of the Month interactive talk, hosted by the Museum of Brands – Pearce talked about the challenges of creating new flavours and how the pressure the current political environment may or may not have on his business.
Pearce also detailed Omega’s involvement in the non-alcoholic spirits sector through the creation of its own alcohol-free gin and tonic drink and his thoughts on the future of the category.
“We’ve almost been waiting for the segment [non-alcoholic spirits] to be created in the market and the technology to make those products,” he explained.
‘New techniques’
“We now have customers asking, ‘can you recreate that kind of thing [spirits] but leave the alcohol’, so we’ve had to develop new techniques and it’s been really ground-breaking – tough at times – and exciting to see the finished product successful.”
Omega Ingredients’ low-alcohol, pre-mixed gin and tonic was reportedly the first of its kind to be developed for a supermarket and is now available in more than 700 Tesco stores nationwide.
Meanwhile, growing consumer demand for alcohol-free, adult soft drinks has sparked a wave of new start-ups hoping to capitalise on the expanding category, as evidenced in last week’s UK Soft Drinks Conference.