Three bright young Australian students have demonstrated their business acumen by not only being selected for an exclusive university course, but also turning that opportunity into a successful start-up thanks to a brilliant idea.
Budding entrepreneurs Gabriel Tucker, Max Moolman and Bridget Lansell were among 30 people chosen from 500 applicants for Monash University’s Fastrack Accelerator program in Melbourne.
They had not met before the first day of the course, but they got along well and decided to work together on an assignment with the broad task of finding a solution to an economic problem of their choosing.
Although it took them a while to find the right problem to tackle, they settled on food waste, which costs the Australian economy around $36.6 billion a year.
Mr Moolman was shocked by the amount of food that was wasted, despite Australia’s “incredible production”.
Upon further investigation, the trio discovered that about a quarter of all produce doesn’t leave the farms where it’s grown, even though it’s perfectly edible, simply because it looks a little “off.”
They thought it was the most ridiculous thing they had ever heard and decided to do something about it.
When Mr Tucker saw how one lawn bowls club was using profits from beer to save other bowls clubs from closing, they came up with the idea of making alcoholic drinks using agricultural products that would otherwise have been thrown away, and Wonki was born.
Budding entrepreneurs Gabriel Tucker, Bridget Lansell and Max Moolman (pictured) were among 30 people chosen from 500 applicants for Monash University’s Fastrack Accelerator program in Melbourne.
“We started exploring the Australian market and couldn’t find a single alcohol product that used imperfect or misshapen fruit,” Moolman said. Yahoo.
They thought this was crazy, since juice, jam and other everyday products were made from fruits that were considered second or third grade.
The students came up with the Wonki brand, but it would take a lot more than just a clever play on words to make their venture a success, especially considering they had to compete with many already established companies.
So they went to Melbourne to get their views on premixed drinks, with questions like whether existing products are too sugary and what flavours they would like to see.
Once they found what they wanted to launch, they hired a company called Farmers Pick to find the produce, Market Juice to make the juices, and Gypsy Hub to make the drinks.
They raised $30,000 through a crowdfunding initiative and used it to make their first batch of drinks using vodka and Wonki soda.
They then wore out the leather on their shoes by going to bars and liquor stores to ask them to stock their brand.
It worked, and within months even liquor giant Dan Murphy’s had Wonki in stock.
This was even more impressive considering that Dan Murphy’s receives around 400 applications a year from companies looking to break into the market for its pre-mixed drinks.
Wonki is Now available in 33 Dan Murphy’s stores in Victoria, 35 BWS locations and 30 standalone stores.
Bridget Lansell, one of the creators of Wonki, appears in the photo promoting the brand.
The trio’s brilliant idea was to use fruits that would otherwise be wasted because they were deformed to make alcohol.
With warmer weather and citrus fruits on the way, they are about to relaunch their blood orange and mandarin flavor (pictured)
The trio’s track record of success has been impressive. They met at the end of 2021, He spent 2022 working on his idea, pitched it in mid-2023, and had a deal with Dan Murphy’s for Christmas that year.
His company’s sales were $205,000 in the 2023-24 financial year and he is confident that will continue to grow, saving more and more of the 7.6 million tonnes of food thrown away in Australia each year, 70 per cent of which is fine but doesn’t make it onto supermarket shelves because it is considered misshapen.
“Each box saves between two and a half and three kilos of produce, but we have just recorded more than 10 tons of produce saved from farms since the middle of last year,” Moolman said.
“We believe we can save a lot more. The ultimate goal is to be able to eliminate second- or third-category waste from an entire farm every season.”
Another short-term goal for the trio, who are aged between 23 and 25, is to expand outside Victoria to the whole country and also find farmers in other states whose produce they can use to make drinks.
As fruit is a seasonal product, the two Wonki flavours currently on sale are watermelon and lemon, and cucumber and lime.
With warmer weather and citrus fruits on the way, they are about to relaunch their Blood Orange and Mandarin flavor.