While NadaMoo! has grown steadily since it launched its coconut-based frozen desserts 14 years ago, things have really picked up in the past few years as non-dairy options have captured a sizeable share of the 'milk' category and are starting to make inroads into every part of the store, said CEO Daniel Nicholson.
“We foresee that through the end of 2019, our year over year growth between 2018 and 2019 will probably be around 60-65%. We’re a plant-based product, but we want people to buy NadaMoo! because it just tastes so much better than everything else like it, that it is acceptable to the dairy ice cream eaters of the world.
“We want our taste to win… and then we can talk about the values and the other things our products bring to the consumer.”
NadaMoo! continues to outpace the growth of the category
He added: “The overall [plant-based frozen desserts] category is growing in the double digits, but NadaMoo! continues to outpace the growth of the category across all channels by three or four times in some cases.”
While the arrival of deep-pocketed brands from Ben & Jerry’s and Häagen-Dazs, to Amy’s, Breyers, Danone and Halo Top in the dairy-free ice cream category has put pressure on smaller brands, NadaMoo! has held its own, claimed Nicholson.
“It’s easy for a big company to come in and gain a bunch of market share off the bat, but the real test comes later as you start looking at the year over year numbers. However, we think there’s room for a lot of brands in this space.”
Target and Walmart
The deals with Target and Walmart, coming off a rollout at Publix, will further boost Nadamoo’s presence in the conventional retail channel, said Nicholson.
“Together those two retailers have about 8,000+ stores, so we see a lot of potential for us to add additional distribution through those partnerships as we want to help them generate sales in the dairy-free category.”
Canadian debut
NadaMoo! has also debuted in Canada this month, securing listings at Whole Foods Markets and Choices Markets natural foods grocery stores in British Columbia, 108 Metro stores in Ontario; 28 Longo's Market stores in Toronto, Brampton, Burlington, Mississauga, and Oakville; and 160 Save-on-Foods stores in British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, and the Yukon territory.
Series B round
Family-owned NadaMoo!, which raised its first outside capital in late 2017 via a $4m in a Series A financing round led by InvestEco Capital, is now seeking to raise additional capital to support its growth via a series B round, he added.
“We’re putting together a fundraising deck and we plan to kick off a series B round probably starting mid to late summer.”
Earlier this year NadaMoo! voluntarily recalled c.26,000 pints of its Strawberry Cheesecake non-dairy frozen dessert owing to an undeclared almond ingredient.
“We were making formulation changes on some inclusions and as those changes were made by our R&D team, they failed to mention that one of the reformulations was adding new ingredients, and one of them was an allergen,” said CEO Daniel Nicholson. “We uncovered this issue before anyone reached out to us having had any issues, but there is a member of our R&D team that is no longer with the company.”
Frustrating though the episode was, it was also a learning experience, he said. “This really caused us to pause and look again at some of our systems to make sure we are never in a position like this again. We’ve received a 100% effectiveness rating from the FDA for the way we handled this issue, which I think shows the market that we take this very seriously.”
