With 90 million cups of fungi-fuelled Dirtea coffees currently consumed daily across the UK, the five-year-young mushroom brand has helped drive the recent shroom boom in the UK.
But now the brand’s founders hope to take their loyal customers beyond mushroom drinks and gummies and redefine Dirtea as a brain care brand with a line of ‘pure’ and ‘clean’ single ingredients that can be used to create brain care stacks.
“With Dirtea, we took a niche ingredient and made it part of people’s routines,” Andrew Salter, Dirtea founder and CMO told NutraIngredients. “That’s what Dirtea is good at, we take a niche ingredient, build a community of novices, then develop those novices into advocates. We want to take that ability beyond mushrooms.”
The ‘Pure Essentials’ range extension came as a direct result of consumer research and the discovery that customers were buying other powdered supplements to add to their drinks but customers weren’t loyal to those other supplements as they weren’t sure what to trust.
This signalled a clear opportunity to Salter.
“80% of our audience are women and women have a lower biological store of creatine, plus their storage declines more quickly than men’s after the age of 30.”
Add to this the fact the main priority of most of Dirtea’s consumers is energy, Salter said creatine was an obvious addition.
“Creatine activates the production of ATP—it’s all about strength and energy.”
Yet, he said many of the brand’s customers are ‘scared’ of creatine, thanks to its perception as a muscle building supplement.
“We see this as a great opportunity to turn creatine and collagen novices into advocates,” he said.
“We are telling a new story around what strength and power means. It’s not about bulking up but, its about having the building blocks in place to power through the day.”
Meanwhile, collagen is crucial for the formation of glycine, an amino acid essential in the central nervous system. Glycine acts as a neurotransmitter which could enhance sleep quality and promote a calming effect on the brain, potentially impacting mood and anxiety levels. NI previously reported on a study showing the protein’s mental health benefits in middle-aged adults.
The Pure Essentials Collagen delivers 5,000mg per serving of Type I and Type III Peptan hydrolysed collagen peptides while the creatine sku contains 100% micronised creatine monohydrate.
Both are independently tested by Eurofins and Light Labs to verify purity and safety and the products come in transparent tubs to highlight the USPs of ‘transparent’ and ‘trustworthiness’.
The brand’s consumer communication will centre around the health benefits of creatine and collagen beyond physical performance and beauty, calling out creatine’s clinically backed benefits in female populations.
The messaging will be driven by the brand’s chief science officer Dr. Tara Swart, a neuroscientist, medical doctor, and author with close to 800,000 followers on Instagram.
Mushrooms in the mainstream
The brand also just launched its £10 coffee sku into Tesco supermarkets across the UK —a “potentially risky move” according to Salter.
“We’ve always aimed to be a lifestyle brand but at a price point that’s accessible but this has been a major step for us into the mainstream channel. I was very worried because in terms of supermarkets, Tesco might not have been my first port of call but they approached us and offered us to be the first functional brand in their tea and coffee aisle.”
He explained the risk is people walking the tea and coffee aisle are very brand loyal.
“People don’t tend to browse the aisle,” he said. “But so far the sales have been impressive. Clearly, people want to be healthier and they want drinks with benefits and the fact that its appealing to the Tesco shopper is really exciting.”
