Speaker A
[Music] Hi sharks, I'm Allison Ellsworth, and I'm Steven Ellsworth, and together we're the co-founders of Mother Beverage based in Dallas, Texas. We're here seeking $400,000 in exchange for 10% equity in our company.
Mother Beverage founders pitch their apple cider vinegar probiotic drink on Shark Tank, seeking $400K for 10% equity.
Key Takeaways
- Mother Beverage offers a unique, better-tasting apple cider vinegar probiotic drink with health benefits.
- The company has demonstrated initial sales success and secured retail placements but faces scaling challenges.
- In-house manufacturing keeps product quality but may hinder growth and distract founders from business expansion.
- Large beverage companies often acquire successful niche brands rather than innovate internally.
- Founders need to transition from artisanal production to a scalable business model to survive and grow.
What the video covers
- Allison and Steven Ellsworth pitch Mother Beverage, a sparkling probiotic drink made with apple cider vinegar, organic fruits, and herbs.
- They seek $400,000 for 10% equity, highlighting health benefits and low sugar content (2-4 grams per bottle).
- The founders share personal health stories and the motivation behind creating a better-tasting ACV drink.
- Mother Beverage has $500,000 lifetime sales and projects $1 million revenue with placement in over 200 stores including Albertsons and local Whole Foods.
- The product retails between $2.99 and $3.59, with production costs around 78-85 cents per bottle.
- They manufacture in-house to keep the product raw and unpasteurized, with current capacity of 60,000 bottles/month and plans to scale to 200,000.
- Sharks express concerns about competition, lack of proprietary advantage, and the founders being too involved in manufacturing.
- Discussion includes the need for scaling, distribution partnerships, and the challenges of competing with large beverage companies.
- The pitch ends with a shark declining the deal, citing the founders are not yet ready to compete with big players.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction and Pitch Request
- 00:46Apple Cider Vinegar Shot Tasting
- 01:18Product Description and Health Benefits
- 02:13Product Sampling and Flavor Varieties
- 03:01Apple Cider Vinegar Dosage and Benefits
- 03:51Business Overview and Sales Projections
- 04:40Manufacturing and Cost Discussion
- 07:11Sharks’ Concerns and Final Decision
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
All right, sharks, who wants to take a shot with me? Shot, take a shot.
Speaker A
Shots. We put shots down in front of you. See who's brave. Shot ready? Cheers!
Speaker A
Oh, it's apple cider vinegar. So, as you guys know by now, that was a shot of apple cider vinegar.
Speaker A
Oh my God. Well, I started drinking apple cider vinegar, or ACV, to detox and lose weight. I loved the way it made me feel, but the taste was so strong, so we created Mother Beverage. Mother Beverage is an all-natural sparkling probiotic drink made with organic fruits and herbs,
Speaker A
and most importantly, apple cider vinegar. They're light, crisp, refreshing, and the best part, there's only 2 to 4 grams of sugar per bottle. So, what do you say, sharks? Are you ready to try the best tasting apple cider vinegar drink you've
Speaker A
ever had?
Speaker A
I'm still dying. Well, we've got some samples here for you today.
Speaker A
Yeah, you better. Something to compare to. This is much better. You had—you should have warned us though.
Speaker A
Yeah, it's strong. You can have this shot. Would you like another?
Speaker A
Oh, I think I'm quite all right, thank you very much. I'll take one of these lovely beverages though, thank you.
Speaker A
It doesn't taste as crappy as the shot. It tastes like sugary soda.
Speaker A
That's the idea. So, our top sellers are lime ginger, raspberry rose, our pineapple turmeric, and blueberry sage. So, how much apple cider vinegar is in here?
Speaker A
So, there's a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar. What will that do for you?
Speaker A
There's a ton of great health benefits to apple cider vinegar. Allison has a personal story about that. She started drinking it to detox and to lose weight. So, if you dilute ACV, does the function of the apple cider vinegar still stand, or is it pretty much like you've sub—
Speaker A
They recommend to dilute it because if you just take it straight, it's hard on your esophagus and it's hard on your stomach. Ours is fully unpasteurized, so you want to make sure it still has all the health benefits intact. So, we've just
Speaker A
prepared like a pre-made healthy go-to option to get your daily dose of apple cider vinegar, right?
Speaker A
Exactly. Tell us about—tell us about the business. So, we started about 18 months ago. Our lifetime sales are about $500,000. What are you going to
Speaker A
make this year? All in. So, we're projecting a million dollars. We just received placement in over 200 locations in a large national grocery chain. Is it Whole Foods? We are in Whole Foods locally in the Dallas-Fort Worth area,
Speaker A
but it was actually Albertsons. How much is this bottle retail? So, it retails for $2.99 to $3.59 based on the retailer's margin. What's the cost to make the product? So, the cost is anywhere between 78 cents and 85 cents a bottle all in.
Speaker A
That's pretty good for the volumes you have. The only way I get out of this thing alive is somebody buys you at some point. There's an exit, right?
Speaker A
Yes, sir, and that exit in beverage seems to be
Speaker A
at around 50 million when you establish some regional market share. The big guys come and take you out as opposed to doing this themselves because what you're doing, there's nothing proprietary about this. Anybody can knock you off, but we
Speaker A
happen to have an expert here who built billion-dollar brands in beverage. Let me ask a question. Tell me why these two are not beverage cockroaches going to get crushed by big guys who want that shelf space back. The big guys, what they've
Speaker A
done is they have subcontracted innovation to the entrepreneurs of America. So, very few brands are being launched by the big beverage companies today, so they're not cockroaches. They have a chance of survival. People want to drink beverages that they feel better
Speaker A
about. In this space, the first thing is, do you have a functional story? We do have a great story. We both worked in oil and gas before we did this, and I was having a ton of health issues. I kept
Speaker A
going to different doctors. I just was sluggish, bloating, skin problems. Finally, I read online that drinking apple cider vinegar could help with a lot of those problems. Within two weeks, everything had subsided, but I could not get over the
Speaker A
taste, so I literally went back to my kitchen and created this. We started selling at farmers markets, and actually the Whole Foods buyer tried our product at the farmers market and said, you guys have to be in Whole Foods. Are you now
Speaker A
full-time into the vinegar deal? How much have you invested? So, currently we've raised about $125,000. At what valuation? So, that was at a $600,000 valuation. That was—now you're million? That was pre-revenue based on concept. That was friends and
Speaker A
family, so a majority of that money was to literally start our production facility. So, you manufacture this yourself? Yes, sir. How big can you get on your current manufacturing footprint? 60,000 bottles a month, but we do—we have
Speaker A
already started to finance a fully automated bottling line, and this will take us up to 200,000. Why would you want to be in the manufacturing business? I—That's what I'm—I just can't believe you guys. That's a disaster. It keeps our cost down. We are
Speaker A
able, but you're in the mud, you're in the weeds. Why would you want to be in the manufacturing business? I—That's what I'm—I just can't believe you guys. That's a disaster. It keeps our cost down. We are
Speaker A
able. You're in the mud, you're in the weeds. The reason that we don't copack, we wanted to keep it raw and unpasteurized. I will tell you that if I did not do a deal in my cocktail business, I would
Speaker A
have gotten swallowed. Everybody did copy me by now. Nobody copied me, and I knew I needed muscle and distribution. You need to come in hot and hard and fast, and you need a partner because you're still in the kitchen. You're not even at phase zero
Speaker A
where you have someone else doing it for you, so you need to get the hell out of the kitchen, and you need to start a business, not an artisanal mom and pop beverage business. I'm out. You're not fully cockroaches yet.
Topics:Mother Beverageapple cider vinegarprobiotic drinkShark Tankbeverage startuphealth drinkorganic beverageentrepreneurshipDallas startupbeverage industry
