BITE is bringing organic and sustainable beverages to the table
At BITE beverages are thought of as a culinary experience and not just a drink. BITE are creating beverages for restaurants and bars that are enhancing sustainability, improving the business of their customers and at the same time heightening the guests’ culinary experience. I’ve had a chat with Patrik, co-founder and CEO, about how you create meaningful change in a conservative industry and what his learnings has been so far.
About BITE
- Established in 2018 by Patrik Drobný, Roberto Ferro & Frederik Selvang
- BevCo focusing on sustainable, culinary beverages
- 9 employees (February 2024)
- Sector: Food & drinks
About the investment
- Investment made: March 2021
- Source: DanBAN
- Investment proces: 2 months
- Stage: Pre-seed
- Investment form: Equity
- Role: Passive, provides sparring
The Founders of BITE (formerly The Syrup Company), from left Patrik, Frederik & Roberto, March 2021
What do you do at BITE?
I am the CEO of BITE and my primary function is to set the strategy together with the BITE team. My secondary mission is to represent BITE to the outside world. This includes promoting BITE to potential customers, investors, and wider industry community.
How are your products novel and different from the (many) other beverage companies?
Without sounding too ambitious, BITE’s novel proposition happens throughout the whole value chain. We implement novel production process, flavour composition, packaging, and business model.
As a purely B2B focused beverage brand, our value grows only when our customers perceive that BITE adds value within these 5 measurable categories. The more boxes we tick the stronger partnership we form.
- Customers report severing better tasting drinks using BITE
- Customers report earning more revenue per drink served
- Customers report lower “food cost” per drink served
- Customers report having more storage space
- Customers report having lower waste of products
Having a 100% B2B focused business model allows us to solely focus on making our customers successful.
3. In many cases you also have to train/educate your customers – how have you found a good “recipe” for that?
We only hire team members to BITE who have prior experience in the service industry, which we are serving – bartenders, chefs, baristas, coffee roasters. Then the education of customers happens naturally because our team is highly skilled and educated in their business.
To boost education further, BITE launched -> BITE Seasonal menus released 4x per year / BITE Lemonade & Soft Drink Menu / BITE Alcohol Free Cocktails / BITE Online recipe database to always keep enough options for our customers when they are ready to switch around their beverage menus.
What is your dream that BITE can achieve in the long run?
To create a sustainable business which continuously creates value for its customers, and takes care of its team and shareholders.
How is it to run a start-up within an industry dominated by very large players?
I believe, it is a bit easier as our counter positioning is really strong. If there are only a few substantial other players it is easier to explain the value of new concept.
Would you have done anything differently if you started BITE today?
I would use Socrates quote: The more I learn, the less I realize I know. Simply put the list is only getting larger. The highest priority is to apply these learnings going forward.
What are your key learnings when it comes to foreign sales / export?
It requires more investment than you budget with. I mean 2-3x of what you budget. You are never ready. Sooner you start the sooner you learn. Test, don’t assume. I personally view every new market entry as a 3-year journey until gaining a stable position in that market.
What are your top 3 advice for other new or aspiring Founders?
- Go narrow & deep with your idea
- Under promise and overdeliver
- Find 2 co-founders
The investor angle and how I work with BITE
I saw BITE pitch at a DanBAN pitch event in early 2021. They gave a great presentation and ended up getting me & nine other DanBAN members to invest.
What I liked about BITE (and still like today) is the diverse set of skills in the Founder group. Across Patrik, Roberto & Frederik they possess skills within sales, operations, concept development, product development & expertise in flavour extraction. Additionally they are bringing a sustainable angle to beverages by eliminating the need for excessive packaging and transportation of water. On top of that their product is helping create much better tasting alternatives for alcohol free drinks – a market showing enormous growth.
I have been attached to BITE as an advisor when needed and have talked to both Frederik & Patrik on numerous occasions. We have discussed digital marketing, lead generation & general commercial strategies as well as sparring on funding.
What BITE does well that others can learn from:
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BITE are addressing a growing market and are tapping into several macro-trends (less alcohol consumption, sustainable consumption, organic products)
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BITE has three co-founders who have very diverse skill-sets and personalities improving the odds of succeeding
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BITE are great at listening to their customers and many of their products are co-created with customers increasing stickiness and reducing customer churn