Sidekick Soda stands out as a fruity and eco-friendly alternative in an increasingly crowded soda market

Your diet drink is full of a bunch of weird sugar substitutes, but the regular version has too much sugar to justify consuming it. This is the dilemma that arises in the minds of a new generation of soda drinkers who want to be health conscious but crave the sweet, carbonated sensation.

Many brands, especially Olipop and Poppi in recent years, have tried to solve this problem. Each has achieved impressive success, and the inevitable succession of imitators is trying to catch up. While each has significantly simpler ingredient lists than larger brands and does not contain ingredients like high fructose corn syrup, their success is likely due to branding and marketing.

Sidekick Soda, on the market for just 16 months, isn’t a copycat—it’s a new, artisanal take on what soda can be. This is due to the fact that simple ingredients are used to prepare it: fresh fruit puree, apple cider vinegar and honey. Created by mother and son duo Fiona Tomlinson and Rogie Tomlinson-Gillis, Sidekick is a vibrant blend that will transport you to the New Zealand gardens where these ingredients are specially sourced. “We wanted to make something that had all the ingredients you could use at home,” Fiona tells me.

Perfectly Imperfect Ingredients from New Zealand

Sidekick Soda introduces an updated line that now includes four varieties: strawberry, mango, cherry and pear, the latter two of which are completely new to the market.

The cherries used to puree the new cherry variety come from New Zealand’s Central Otago region, near the mountain town of Wanaka where the duo live and where 95% of the country’s export cherries are grown. This particular cherry is part of New Zealand’s Cherry Corporation’s Cherry Rescue Project, which saves cherries for projects like Sidekick that would otherwise be discarded because grocers don’t want products with surface defects, even though the taste is no different . “These cherries receive the same treatment as our export cherries,” says Rhys van der Velden, CEO of the New Zealand Cherry Project. “However, tiny imperfections that you wouldn’t otherwise notice beyond arm’s length are optically sorted by degree of processing because of how they appear under the camera.”

The project allocates approximately 22,000 pounds of cherries to Sidekick each season. Its goal is to save 4000 tonnes of cherries by 2030 and create a zero-waste New Zealand cherry industry. “Products like Sidekick will raise awareness of the fantastic products that are possible,” says van der Velden. “We hope that with time and a lot of effort, this will create a market both domestically and internationally that will allow us to rescue all the New Zealand-grown cherries that don’t quite meet strict varietal standards.”

Sidekick’s other varieties—pear, mango and strawberry—also use specially grown fruit to add flavor. The pears come from Hawke’s Bay, where 65% of New Zealand’s apple and pear farms are located. Mangoes come from Australia, particularly North Queensland, which is famous for its mango farms due to its temperate climate, producing about 22 million pounds of mangoes per year. Strawberries are grown in the north of New Zealand, in the Waikato region near Auckland. The Auckland and Waikato regions produce about 80% of the country’s strawberries, where farmers are starting to experiment with using the berry as a cover crop.

Sidekick’s flavor is what elevates it beyond your run-of-the-mill soda. Fresh fruit nourishes the liquid from the first sip to the last, and the light carbonation keeps the drink refreshing. Although it is not fleshy, the fibers of the fruit create a pleasant thickness. The acidity of the apple cider vinegar adds a tart flavor that’s balanced by the multifloral honey (also an intentional choice), made from a blend of bush and grassland honeys. “New Zealand honey is mainly focused on Manuka honey… but that’s not for us. This took the flavor out of the fruit,” explains Fiona. Instead, this honey comes from Midland Apiaries, which claim the hives are located on uncontaminated land and forests in New Zealand’s Mid-Canterbury region.

Sidekick doesn’t make explicit claims about improving gut health, a feature that is increasingly lost in the beverage aisle. But using apple cider vinegar, which has been used for centuries to relieve upset stomachs, may actually be more beneficial for gut health than other options that tout it as a selling point. Using apple cider vinegar as an elixir of sorts is ingrained in Fiona. “Growing up, my mom always made me drink apple cider vinegar,” she explains. She also used it as a skin rash treatment and hair conditioner. “The way she bought me was very hippy-dippy… (in the 70s) she worked for the first naturopath in New Zealand.”

The company says it is committed to never using any artificial sweeteners. Fiona says of ingredients like stevia: “If I didn’t use it at home, I would never use it.” One can contains about 11 grams of sugar, but 100% of it is real fruit and honey. “I’m a real purist,” she adds.

Taste of two generations

Fiona struggled to continue her previous work as a commercial photographer after she was diagnosed with fourth nerve palsy, causing her to lose her binocular vision. Knowing she needed to change her lifestyle, she had the opportunity to acquire the Damson Collection, originally a condiment company, before Fiona began producing her Damson Plum Gin Liqueur, which was subsequently voted the best fruit liqueur in the world at the World Liqueur Awards 2020.

During the pandemic, the couple used liqueur plums and experimented, keeping in mind Fiona’s mother’s traditional practices. “I had buckets and buckets of different fruits and flavours, and different ways of sweetening with different amounts of honey,” says Fiona. Her vision for the final product was a little different from Roga, who was training for cycling marathons and wanted something more hydrating. “This product was the result of both of us coming together,” he says. “I wanted something better for myself that I could drink a lot of, like ten bottles a day, and what my mom wanted was something that really tasted good.”

The story of two generations coming together is naturally reflected in the way consumers enjoy soda. “Although we initially marketed ourselves to a certain age demographic, we have found that our demographic has actually expanded,” says Fiona. “We have families that drink Sidekick and kids just get hooked on it because it’s not too sweet. Children don’t have a very sweet tooth. We are developing this.” Consumers of a certain age will even drink and pour some alcohol into it.

Entering American shelves

After spreading across New Zealand last year, Sidekick has started to hit shelves in the States. “The US knows soda,” says Fiona, explaining why she wanted to cross the Pacific. “Americans are the absolute experts on sodas because they’ve been part of your food language for generations.” A major milestone occurred in March when Sidekick entered all ten stores of Erewhon, an upscale natural foods store in Southern California. “Erewhon opened doors for us. They have such incredibly lax rules and regulations about what they cook.” These regulations likely haven’t been a deal breaker for the brand since food regulations such as non-GMO requirements are even stricter in New Zealand, where the company has already passed these tests.

Fiona and Rogie say sales in the US have so far been better than in New Zealand. “They are already looking for similar things in California. People are asking for drinks that don’t contain stevia, the fruit sweetener,” Rogie says. “They want things that are naturally sweetened with honey.” Throughout her business journey, she has noticed a sense of kinship between America and New Zealand. She says, “America understands the beauty and purity of New Zealand and the value of honey.”

Sidekick found initial success with New York-based Pop-Up Grocer, which provides opportunities for emerging consumer products brands by serving as a primary retailer. Pop-Up Grocer founder and CEO Emily Shildt told me that Sidekick has undergone a trial run, which is often a reflection of how a product will perform at larger retailers. “They’ve stayed on the shelf, which means they’re outperforming a number of brands in the beverage category,” Shildt says.

“Good for you sparkling water as a category is our best-performing beverage category,” adds Shildt, explaining why Sidekick appeals to today’s consumers. “The pendulum has swung a bit on sweeteners, although alternatives were quite attractive for a while, but there is definitely skepticism surrounding them now. Honey is familiar and generally perceived as pure.”

Freight costs from New Zealand proved to be a challenge; Delivery of cargo to the USA may take more than a month. This is one reason for the shift to packaging from glass bottles to jars, although some retailers will continue to sell glass bottles until supplies run out. The founders are exploring additional ways to reduce costs, such as shipping the concentrates to America, where they will then be carbonated and packaged rather than produced entirely in New Zealand. Honey is also more expensive than many other sweeteners, but that’s non-negotiable. Each can currently costs $4.99.

Fiona’s sight has returned, but she remains committed to feeding Sidekick’s customers refreshing treats while doing the same with the soil from which her ingredients come. “If you take responsibility for your life, you need a good assistant. It makes the drinker the hero of their life,” she says. “It’s about us feeling this beautiful value in ourselves.”

Fiona and Rogi were thinking about creating a product for the masses, and there was nowhere for them to penetrate other than the USA. “America is a country where you can find a major retailer, immediately find a major investor, and three hours later be a huge success,” Rogie says. “You can’t do that in many other countries.”