Drinking the Kool-Aid: Plink! Seeks to Offer Sustainable Solution to Single-Use Plastics
Aiming to make single use cans and bottles a thing of the past, former “trend spotter” Max Luthy and event producer-turned-beverage entrepreneur Luke Montgomery-Smith have launched Plink!, a vintage-inspired brand of beverage tablets.
What is Plink!?
The quick dissolving tablet is launching in three flavors – Pomegranate Berry, Pineapple Grapefruit and Watermelon – sold on the brand’s website in 18-packs for $22. Luthy and Montgomery-Smith said they spent two years developing the line, which contains 14 calories and 1 gram of sugar per serving.
To support the launch the company raised a seed round of capital with investors including Listen Ventures, Pentland Ventures, actor Maisie Williams, Starface founder Brian Bordainick, Who Gives a Crap co-founder Danny Alexander and HootSuite founder Dario Meli. A second round is already in the works, Montgomery-Smith said.
Plink’s founders were motivated to start the brand to help consumers eliminate their use of single-use plastics — a habit Luthy believes will one day be as obsolete as smoking indoors.
“I realized that all of the drinks I admired…were flying in the face of the low packaging and the low carbon trends,” Luthy said. “I don’t want to throw the entire beverage industry under the bus, but I will, we’re just all completely used to this insane ritual of cracking open cans and bottles like they grow on trees and then putting them in the recycling bin and feeling good about ourselves. It’s just batshit crazy.”
Though the duo considered developing the product from scratch, Montgomery-Smith said they ultimately decided to work with co-packers, using existing effervescent tablet technology for their “bath bomb you can drink” concept. He said the tablets are excellent flavor carriers and, as a by-product of the fizzing mechanism, have the added functional benefits of electrolytes. Because Plink! doesn’t contain extra functional ingredients — such as Nuun or Gu Drink Tabs — Montgomery-Smith said the tablet dissolves faster with a more robust fizzing experience.
By nature the tablet format makes Plink! more experiential for the end user than a normal bottled beverage, Luthy said, and the duo use the name not only to refer to the beverage itself, but also to describe the act of creating the beverage. Luthy said his wife, for example, “plinks” after a run while his two children get upset if someone “plinks” for them.
What’s the Strategy?
In contrast to competing tablet products that make additional functional claims, Montgomery-Smith highlighted how Plink’s straightforward proposition of creating daily moments of “joy,” means it can avoid using the masking agents and sweeteners in other tablet brands.
Though Plink is aimed at the natural consumer, Montgomery-Smith sees flavor-centric conventional brands like Crystal Light, Mio, and Kool Aid as its direct competition.
“It’s not ‘drink this because you have to,’ it’s ‘drink this for fun’. You deserve a treat,” Luthy said. “There’s this gap between the kind of over the counter supplements and then the like vintage ‘just-add-water’ products, which are perceived as like a cheap choice like Crystal
Light… that part of the supermarket is still there and it’s unloved. It’s ripe for a new entrance that is healthier, naturally flavored, uses natural colors and is exciting.”
Plink! Is starting direct-to-consumer, a channel in which investors Brian Bordainick and Danny Alexander’s deep ecomm credentials will be of particular assistance, Luthy said. Montgomery-Smith said he understands the competitive advantage of selling online — where other heavy beverages struggle — after his last beverage brand Wild-Fizz Kombucha, was forced to shutter as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Meanwhile Williams will help expand the brand’s reach as it leans into mediums such as Tik Tok as part of its marketing strategy.
“We have a really broad omni-channel approach, we see huge growth opportunities in food service and enterprise and office,” Montgomery-Smith said. “We have so much packaging innovation possible, from retail packs to small travel packs to vending machines.”
