Australian eco-brand relaunches website as it celebrates “phenomenal” first year

Environmentally focused Australian wine brand The Hidden Sea – which has pledged to remove one billion plastic bottles from the ocean by 2030 – has relaunched its website a year after launching, as it eyes up global expansion.

The new website aims to provide a clearer view of what the company’s mission is – it works with Danish firm The ReSea Project to remove one kilo of plastic from the ocean for every case of Hidden Sea sold globally – as well as building a community with brand ambassadors and like-minded business partners.

“Instead of saying it’s more ‘We’re The Hidden Sea, buy our wine’, it says ‘This is what we stand for, this is the people in our movement – if you like what we do, buy some wine and support what we do. That was the difference,” co-founder Justin Moran told db.

The website also includes a clean up status report, tallying the total number of plastic bottles it has removed from the sea since July 2020. Currently the total is over 5.5million, with the aim to get to 1 billion by 2030.

Labour of love

Moran said the company has had a phenomenal six months. Before that it had been “a real labour of love” to build the brand and work out what tangible difference it could make.

“Since the beginning we’ve given back to ocean health, but we went through a process of pledging a percentage of a case or 2$ a case but consumers weren’t engaging with it, they didn’t know what the money was actually doing,” he said.

It wasn’t until the point that the brand was almost on the chopping board that the brand teamed up with Danish OWP Ocean-wides Plastic and by collaborating with the ReSea project were able to see exactly what their money did in terms of action.

“We have an easy to understand premise – for every bottle of The Hidden Sea we sell, we remove ten bottles of plastic from the ocean,” Moran explains. Since establishing this powerful message and committing to removing 1billion bottles from the sea by 2030, it has seen expedited growth, he says.

“Everyone sells ‘the story in the wine industry – but what does it mean, and how do you make sense of it as a consumer. We focused on it at a different level, wanted to make a tangible difference, not only the world around us, but on our customers’ lives.”

“The world has changed – people are starting to realised that we need to make changes, and work with companies that are making change,” he adds. “And retailers are thinking that too.”

That was the key part, he adds. “With the big retailers, especially in the UK, it comes down to the point of difference, what margin they can make out of your product and if you have a value proposition that stacks up. Because of the premium angle of our wine, we could hit the margin they want.”

In the last six months, Sainsbury’s and the Coop and Kingsland Drinks have come on board as important partners in the UK, Moran notes. “We’re in discussion with biggest retailer, selling into Denmark, we have a tender to launch in Sweden and we’re with one of the top ten importers in US, where we’re the fastest growing brand, with an Walmart since August.”

The brand has also signed with a distributor in Thailand, and one of Australia’s biggest distributors, Oakley Fine Wines.

Consumer response

The early consumer signs are “phenomenal” he adds, particularly through social media. Their strategy on social is less about brand promoting though, and more to identify the problem and offer solutions.

“It’s about galvanising people to get behind that brand to solve the problem [of plastic pollution]. Just talking about it is pointless, so we try to engage with like-minded, socially conscious consumers,” he says.

“We’re not just creating just another drinking movement, it’s a movement, it drives our social, engagement and the brand.”

The company has signed up brand ambassadors –primarily environmentalists, or ocean health warriors, they’re serious about who’s behind the brand and the credibility that ReSea has in the marketplace in what they’re doing,

Expanding the range

The Hidden Sea currently produces around 40k cases this year, but has plans to grow. It is also looking at expanding the range, although not all wines will be necessarily launched in all markets.

Currently it produces a Sauvignon Blanc, a rose, and Chardonnay – which are all available in the UK, as well as a Shiraz and a red blend, which the team are in discussions about for the UK market. .

This year will see a Pinot Grigio, Grenache and a lighter style Shiraz added to the range

“It is an interesting project we’re calling “the juicy June”, a fruit-forward lower alcohol 10% abv Shiraz, that has been bottled early, in June, rather than left to age for an extra few months.

“It’s on trend to have low alcohol, lighter style wines and that’s where we’re moving to,” Moran explains. “Our market is 30, 35-40yr old women and that’s the style of wine they want to be drinking, so that’s where we’re going to with our style and vision,” Moran explains.