Page 30 - Food&Drink magazine November-December 2022

✷ RISING STAR
Rising Star:
Class of 2022
Industry pioneers veer from the conventional and expected to innovate, drive change, and achieve success. Our Rising Stars of 2022 are testament to that.
Planting a good seed
When their active lifestyle was not enough to combat unexpected health concerns, The Good Seed founders
Ivy Ong and Adrian Soon started looking
at their diet.
AS the saying goes, when life gives you lemons, turn them into lemonade, but for Ivy Ong and Adrian Soon, instead of lemonade, they created functional beverages company The Good Seed and the brand Sorted, a prebiotic, fibre-rich sparkling kefir beverage.
“We’re both really active people. We decided we needed to eat better for our health. Little did we know that we’d become incredibly passionate
about gut health and start sharing our creations with our community,” Ong says.
Similar to kombucha but with a more diverse probiotic content, water kefir is made by adding water kefir crystals
– which are a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast (SCOBY) – into a sugar solution. During the fermentation process the sugar is consumed by the crystals and turns into a bubbly probiotic drink.
When the pandemic came along, Ong and Soon decided to direct their focus to direct-to- consumer and launched Sorted, their second product.
The couple handed out samples, tweaking flavours based on consumer feedback until they settled on Watermelon & Mint, Blood Orange, and Blackcurrant flavours for its launch.
“The flavours were developed by having a thorough understanding of our customers’ taste preferences.
“It turns out we all miss the nostalgic orange and blackcurrant flavoured sugar filled drinks that were once guzzled down without a second thought,” Soon says.
Within the first week of its availability, The Good Seed pre-sold 70 per cent of its first production run for Sorted and received multiple repeat orders.
Their goal is to see Sorted in major supermarkets and convenience stores. Plans are also underway for exporting Sorted to Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand, with the pair saying they will share more in the near future.
“We will most likely have product in Malaysia by Q1 next year as we see Sorted as an excellent proposition for Malaysian consumers,”
says Ong. ✷
30 | Food&Drink business | November-December 2022 | www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au