Kids soft drinks brand Doodles crowdfunds for retail launch

New sparkling soft drinks kids brand Doodles has opted for the crowdfunding route to support its retail launch program and marketing campaign.

The brand will open their first round of funding with Crowdcube on 13 April, looking to raise £300,000. The funding window will run for 30 days.

The new-to-market concept of lightly sparkling soft drinks for kids in special ‘colour me can’ formats allows kids to colour in, wipe and recolour various fun characters and pictures that feature on the 250ml cans with any crayons or felt tips.

Alisha and LeeEason, founders of the low sugar brand, said they have been frustrated by the lack of healthy sparkling drinks available for their children.

“Our kids have always loved to drink sparkling water and they often put fruit in their drinks to make it into a more fun ‘kiddy’ cocktail so we wanted to take this and make something more accessible and fun to the younger audience,” commented Alisha.

“We just wanted to create a wholesome healthy drink in a fully recyclable can to allow them to have healthy drinks with an added twist of fun but at the same time also teaching them to look after the earth as the UK’s fixation with single use plastic bottles seems to continue.”

The launch, planned for June, will see three variants – Apple & Blueberry, Pineapple & Mandarin and Peach & Mango – hitting the shelves with RRPs between £1.20-£1.49. Each can only has between 2.2-2.4g of sugar and only 22 calories with no refined sugars or preservatives.

Bravura Foods, exclusive distributor and brand partner, said it has started talks with the grocery supermarkets and high street retailers for ranging plans, in addition to a number of export interests.

Karl Morris, director at Bravura Foods, said: “We absolutely love this brand, its so unique, fun and entertaining for young consumers and exactly what the market needs.”

Fellow director Lisa Gawthorne added: “I think it’s a winning concept – to combine a fun activity with healthy hydration and it really has been a stagnant sector dominated by high sugar fizzy drinks for such a long time”.