The five-year-young brand, best known for its mushroom coffees, hot chocolates and gummies, topped the poll after gaining 230% CAGR over the two most recent financial years.
The Alantra Food & Beverage Fast 50 rankings showcases the best performing businesses in the sector with companies that have exceeded sales of £3m in the last year making the list.
The 2026 index reveals Dirtea atop an all-functional top five. CBD drink brand Goodrays sits in silver spot, while Tonic, known for its effervescent vitamins and kids gummies, takes bronze. Another key CBD drinks player, Trip, stands in fourth place followed by the mushroom supplements brand Spacegoods.
The theme runs throughout the poll with one third of all the businesses mentioned playing in the health and wellness space, including Bio&Me, Dr.Vegan, Bulk Powders, and Huel.
“As a startup, we’ve always looked to Alantra as the biggest validation ever and what’s really cool is if you look at who has made the top three over the last five years, it’s all the brands that are now maturing or exiting,” said Dirtea co-founder Andrew Salter. “Trip have had an incredible story and are really cracking America now and gaining scale in retail, then you have Huel who just sold for a billion dollars, so to be named amongst those brands is really exciting.”
Speaking about the factors that played into the brand’s fast growth, Salter he and his co-founding brother entered the market at the opportune time.
“When we started the brand most people would think I was nuts talking about drinking mushrooms but today it really has hit the mainstream.”
The brand gained its first supermarket listing just this year with Tesco, and Salter admitted he’s been surprised by the organic sales.
“Our evolution from D2C, to running mushrooms bars in Selfridges, to gaining organic sales growth in a supermarket retailer like Tesco shows how much the market has evolved in the last five years,” he said. “Not only are Tesco shoppers interested in functional food and drink, but they already know and understand the Dirtea brand. I think when we start investing in marketing there, it’s going to be really impressive.”
The Dirtea range recently expanded to include its first two non-mushrooms sku’s – pure creatine and pure collagen.
Salter said these have been a huge success, with 86 per cent of the sales coming from those buying both products as a set, and 80 per cent of the sales on subscription.
“It’s proves to us were are a trusted wellness platform, not just a mushroom brand,” he said.
Fundamental socials
Social media has also been an essential driver of growth.
“Social media is fundamental for any brand wanting to grow but particularly for a brand that needs to educate the consumer. Something like mushrooms was niche and complex and we needed to educate through fun and memorable storytelling,” said Salter.
“We put ourselves front and centre, as the founders, to tell our stories and educate the masses and our videos get up to six million views. We can compare our brand to some of the biggest brand sin the world in that regard and that comes down to keeping content fun and interesting.”
They further built social media content through in-person wellness activations from cold-water swimming and sauna wellness events to ‘mushrooms raves’ and jumping out of a helicopter with brand investor and ambassador Bear Grylls.
“It’s thanks to all these in-person activities we’ve been able to build a strong community and diehard fans of the brand who have become passionate advocates and walking billboards as they love to wear the merch as well.”
