#133: Disrupting the Drinks Industry with Double Dutch - a podcast by Alex Chisnall

"When we were younger we were really passionate about the spirit-mixer market and always quite fascinated by the limits and choice in the tonic water and mixers. We used to make sodas for friends and family in our kitchen, we were always in the tonic-mixer market so we were definitely just following our passion. 

We were only going for about 6 months when we got the Foodpreneur award from Richard Branson so we didn't really have to change much because there wasn't so much going on, it was really interesting and it helped us a lot later-on as well. 

We had one bar who said, "we love the pomegranate and basil and the cucumber and watermelon but the packaging is really not on point so we'll have to find a way to serve drinks without people seeing the brand"! So we walked out of that meeting and we thought 'oh my god'. We've had this branding for about 3 years now and we'll probably keep on changing it.

We came to the UK and didn't have a lot of friends or family here, didn't know anyone in food and beverage so we needed investment for the cash but also to get investors on board who could actually help us with our strategy and with networking. We are super lucky that we have each other, if you're a bit down you can pick each other up again, and especially because we're twins we can 100% help each other, it's definitely amazing to do it with the two of us."

On today's show, I welcome Raissa De Haas, one half of Double Dutch, a premium mixer brand started by Dutch identical twins Joyce and Raissa.

I met up with Raissa at their offices in London and we talked about how to disrupt, how to raise finance and how to get help.

Originally from the Netherlands, they moved to the UK to study at University and they launched Double Dutch Drinks back in 2016 and you can now find their premium mixers in over 4,500 outlets including Michelin Star restaurants and luxury hotels and they're about to launch into their first supermarket with Waitrose. They are also previous Foodpreneur winners, an award chosen by Richard Branson to mark the UK's most exciting food or drinks business.

They've gone from starting their business from their kitchen table and bottling by hand to now selling over 10-million bottles in 22 countries. Let's start-up!

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