San Francisco Business Times - 3:28 PM PDT Mondayby Sarah Duxbury
Brad Oberwager has said that he wants his Sundia Corp. to be the Sunkist of the watermelon world.
He is one step closer to that goal. Jeff Gargiulo, CEO of Sunkist and a produce industry veteran, is the new chairman of San Francisco-based Sundia's board of directors.
Oberwager wooed the industry veteran for about five months before Gargiulo committed to Sundia.
"It shows a lot of faith in what we're trying to do," Oberwager said. "He knows all the players in the industry and he understands that brand aspect of produce very well."
Gargiulo is the first produce veteran on Sundia's board, though a former CEO of Peet's Coffee also serves on it. Gargiulo's support of Sundia is the latest in a string of positive developments for the fledgling watermelon brand.
In addition to its pure watermelon juice, Sundia has added three new juice flavors: watermelon pomegranate, watermelon blackberry and watermelon limeade. Close to one-third of all U.S. watermelons are now branded Sundia, thanks to strategic partnerships with 11 of the country's top growers and distributors. Some 3,000 stores nationwide carry Sundia products.
Sundia is just a year old, but the company is on track to achieve profitability by the end of this year, Oberwager said.
Historically, produce companies have had a land-based business model -- the company owns the land on which it grows the product it sells at market.
"We're based on brand, not land," Oberwager said. "That allows us to be light in terms of capital expenditures."
Sundia considers its brand-based approach to produce, where it neither owns land nor grows fruit, but instead builds partnerships and markets for a fruit, a new produce model for the 21st century.
Sundia is not alone in branding a fruit to sell related products.
Pom Wonderful has done a wonderful job of creating a national appetite for pomegranate juice through branding and marketing -- since it introduced its juice in 2002, the privately-held company is estimated to have annual sales above $60 million. But even Pom is land-based; the beverage is the result of Los Angeles-area pomegranate growers trying to create new markets for their fruit.
Sundia, by contrast, developed a method to mass-produce watermelon juice on its own and separately petitioned independent watermelon growers from around the country to band together under the Sundia sticker.
A $2.25 million friends and family round has paid for Sundia's growth to now, but the company plans to raise a large round this summer "to go after real branding opportunities," Oberwager said. |
