Vegan sweet brand founded by two Jewish entrepreneurs launches in Ocado
Mates Joe and Nick have plenty to say about their 'Tasty' success
Tasty Mates was founded by friends Joe Woolf and Nick Sunshine, who wanted to “portray their mates in sweets.” The gelatine-free range of gummies – think jelly babies meet jelly beans – comprise four unique flavours; The Perfect Pear (pear crumble), The Salty One (salted caramel), The Berry Funny One (very berry) and The Juicy Peach (peaches and cream).
Co-founder Joe Woolf, 26, explains: “I have a really sweet tooth and felt that there was a gap for a gourmet jelly sweet that didn’t leave a really sugary white coating in your mouth after you eat it. Candy Kittens really opened the market – before then, if you wanted something high quality you were looking at high end own brand sweets like Harrods. Candy Kittens paved the way for gourmet sweets but I wanted to make a gourmet version of jelly babies but with the flavour profiles of jelly beans with lots of different flavours. I also wanted to have the ‘relatability side’ of sweets, a kind of modern-day Love Hearts.”
Woolf, a former JFS deputy head boy, decided to pick the brains of his friend Nick Sunshine. Sunshine was running his own web development design and branding agency at the time, while Woolf had a job in public relations. Woolf had previously been the Mazkir (national director) of FZY following a long-standing affiliation with the youth movement. The duo knew each other through UJS. “Nick said the brand had legs so the two of us spent the best part of a year working with developers to try and get the recipes right. It started off with us buying loads of sweets and trying to work out what were the common ingredients – it was a mess but we knew what we wanted in terms of our three main goals: to be the tastiest relatable gourmet vegan gummy sweet, to not have a negative impact on the environment, and to promote meaningful moments between mates.”
In January 2020, Woolf and Sunshine, 32, decided to commit to the business full-time, not long before Covid struck. “This actually played to our advantage in some ways” explains Woolf. “It gave us a year to take a step back, really build the brand and get everything in place.” They also managed to secure their first major listing with WH Smith. “We spent so much time networking through LinkedIn, speaking to people and sending samples. It’s about having a good proposition, networking and making sure people enjoy the product.” He adds: “I was learning all the time on the job, constantly typing business acronyms that I hadn’t come across into Google.”
Tasty Mates launched with WH Smith in February 2021 and are also now stocked in a variety of places including Daylesford Organic, Holland and Barrett online and The Vegan Kind Supermarket.
So why vegan? “First and foremost, I wanted my mates who don’t eat gelatine to be able to eat what I made. And you don’t need to eat beef gelatine when eating sweets.”
But of course, the timing is fortuitous. The market for vegan products is exploding – as is the demand for vegan confectionery. Hancocks, the leading confectionery wholesaler in the UK, has expanded its vegan product range with several new options. It now offers vegan sweets from brands such as Bubs, Kingsway, and Swizzels.
According to reports (Vegconomist.com) , the vegan chocolate confectionery industry is expected to be worth $1.3 billion by 2027, growing with a CAGR of 15.84%.
“The market is massive and the environmental side of the business with vegan products being better for the environment, was really important to us,” says Woolf.
Commenting on the Ocado partnership, he says: “We are delighted to have teamed up with Ocado. It opens a big door for us to be on people’s weekly shops but you can’t just rely on one thing. Ocado is amazing and we are so excited about it but there are so many places we want to be – we want to be on everyone’s radar.”
Woolf and Sunshine are currently working on a gifting range with some other exciting plans in the pipeline. “We want to have flavours representing everyone’s personality traits eventually and build a brand that the whole country can access in every shop they go into.” They will just need to make sure all the samples are left with Sunshine. “If they were left at my place they would all be eaten!” jokes Woolf.
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