The 2023 Wellness Show is just one month away. This year’s show takes place at the Vancouver Convention Centre on February 11 & 12, 2023. Featuring many vendors whose offerings are dedicated to health and well-being, we chatted with several key brands whose booths you should visit at this year’s show! —Noa Nichol
Please tell us a bit about yourself and your business to start.
Karma (my dad) has been farming in the Okanagan for 30 years. My family grows apples, cherries, and pears. We wanted to make a healthy beverage for our community (something different from pop, juice or carbonated water) so we decided to juice our fruit and turn it into a healthy soda! Our soda is light, refreshing, and lightly carbonated with the following core values; NO added sugars, NO preservatives, NO colours or artificial flavours, NO concentrates or syrups, made with REAL fruit, natural, vegan, and gluten free beverage. Our business is a family business. All the way from my dad Karma to my 1 year-old son Jhelum we all contribute to the business. My background is actually in Pharmacy and I was a Pharmacist before I started juicing our fruit. Everything was new to us and quite different from farming and pharmacy and we continue to learn every day about retail sales, marketing, manufacturing, and everything that goes into running a small business. Our first product was our Apple Soda. We sold our first can about 2 months before the pandemic started. We ended up innovating our product to 4 more flavours during the pandemic leading to our full product line: Apple, Cherry, Peach, Berry, and Pear Soda. Because of this expansion we won the Innovative Product of the Year Award for Sobey’s in Western Canada 2020. Our product is unique and there is nothing in the market like it! In the market there are pops, juices, and flavoured waters but what makes our product different is that it contains a serving of real fruit (along with the core values mentioned above).
What products do you currently offer, and what makes them unique from other fizzy drinks on the market?
We value being LOCAL and therefore all our flavours are made with BC Fruit at our facility in Kelowna, BC. We are not a carbonated flavoured water, we are not a pure juice, we are not a soda pop. We have a serving of real fruit in each can (with just the right amount of natural sugar from the fruit)
Why is being at The Wellness Show so important to you? Who do you encourage to stop by your booth, and why?
The Wellness Show is important to us because it showcases so many unique, healthy products our community has to offer; and we believe we have a product that fits all those attributes. We are a farming family business that plants trees, grows fruit, juices fruit, and puts it into a can all as a part of our orchard operation. We have a farm-to table-business and we try to deliver the best quality in every can! We encourage all age groups to stop by and try our delicious drinks!
What do you see as being some key drink trends in 2023?
We think the market is moving toward drinks that taste good but don’t come with high calories, high sugars, artificial sweeteners, or preservatives. Consumers are turning to drinks that are “just right” in different aspects:
- Not too sweet but better taste than 0g sugar beverage
- Made with real ingredients – no artificial flavours or syrups
- Not high in calories but something more than a zero-calorie drink
share:
Be the first to comment