Pomegreat

Product: Pomegreat

People behind it:
Name: Adam Pritchard

Adam Pritchard, managing director of RJA Foods, is the man behind the UK’s first pomegranate juice drink, Pomegreat. After travelling around Australia for several years, Pritchard returned to England where he worked as a stockbroker. During this time, he travelled to Pakistan in search of the perfect hand-woven Afghan rug. He didn’t buy a rug, but he did fall in love with pomegranate juice. Unhappy with his job and inspired by the juice he had tasted he decided to postpone his return to the City and see if he could make a business out of pomegranates.

How innovative?
Pritchard spent hours researching in the British Library and found a professor in India who was keen to help. He spent a year searching for the perfect supply of pomegranates, travelling from the Mediterranean to the Middle East. He worked with specialist fruit juice blender David Berryman Ltd to develop a blend of aronia berries with pomegranate concentrate to balance the flavour and the result is a juice drink that is 37% fruit. Pomegreat was launched nationally in the UK in June 2004.

Market success
Pomegreat effectively created a new sector of the UK juice market, for ambient multi-serve pomegranate juice drinks, which is now worth £20.9m, according to IRI Infoscan. Pomegreat has a 75% share of the market by value. There are now more than ten brands available, with more to come. Waitrose and Tesco have already launched their own label pomegranate juices while Sainsbury’s and Asda have launched pomegranate blends.

How it fits
Pritchard launched Pomegreat just as the craze for superfruits was beginning to sweep the UK. ­Pomegranate juice ticks all the right boxes – it is supposed to help keep the heart healthy, it may help prevent hardening and inflammation of the arteries and reduce strokes, it contains more antioxidant vitamins than red wine, green tea, cranberry or orange juice, and it contains high levels of vitamins A, C and E and folic acid.