Dive Brief:
- Tio Gazpacho is hoping to complete a $500,000 round of funding that the company will dedicate primarily to expanding sales and marketing of its high pressure processed, organic gazpacho in a bottle.
- Tio Gazpacho is one of only a handful of companies producing bottled soup, and the company positions its products as healthy and convenient meal replacement beverages.
- The company will also use the funding to launch a new watermelon gazpacho, which is set to debut in early 2016 with distribution expansion by that spring.
Dive Insight:
"It is a product that requires a little bit of demos as we go into a new retailer, it’s a product that requires a little bit of consumer education, because they’re not necessarily familiar with drinkable gazpacho, or drinkable soup at all. And we’re going to do a little bit more PR and kind of fun things to get people aware of our brand," company founder Austin Allan told BevNET.
Meal replacement beverages are more common as consumers look for convenience in food products and packaging for eating on the go. Soylent 2.0 made headlines recently as a bottled meal replacement beverage made from algae.
What also makes Tio Gazpacho's products unique is that they are high pressure processed. This processing method helps extend the shelf life of the product, keeping these bottled gazpachos fresher for longer on the grocery store shelf.
Gazpacho to Go was one of the top five trends at this year's Summer Fancy Food Show in June.