John King launched The Original Pickle Shot with his co-founders, Justin and Brittney Acita, in 2018, inspired by a popular shot at Justin and Brittney’s bar Pickles Pub in Ocean City, Maryland. Since then, the company has enjoyed a fast-tracked growth path, especially during the pandemic when consumers longed for bar-style shots that could be purchased off-premise and easily enjoyed at home during lockdowns.
Original Pickle Shot is currently available in 24 states with about 120,000 cases sold last year. Its goal for 2024 is to surpass 300,000 cases. Park Street University spoke to King about the journey and the challenges his team encountered along the way with compliance, rapid expansion, and more.
Our Interview with John King of The Original Pickle Shot
What need were you trying to address in the market with The Original Pickle Shot?
It was a brilliant idea by my co-founders to bottle it. There weren’t a whole lot of options for low ABV and just great-tasting, enjoyable shots.
We saw everyone’s reaction to it in the bar and they were selling over 100,000 shots a year, making it themselves, so it was kind of a no-brainer. And I think we did it at the right time. The pickle fad and the pickle flavor just kind of exploded the past couple of years so we had a little bit of a warm-up and time to get things right and get to where we are today.
How long did it take you to achieve your current market spread?
It took all five years. There was some help along the way, but for the most part, I was a one-man show. So we grew very fast and outgrew our last vendor, and that’s why we’ve partnered up with Park Street now, and they’ve been a great partner with us. They could handle our volume and our need to grow to where we’re trying to go nationally.
What aspect of compliance do you find the most challenging for your specific product and why?
Where do I start? We almost went out of business a couple of times because of compliance. Neither I nor my co-founders came from the liquor industry so we were learning things on the fly. I remember I stopped selling just to focus on compliance and make sure to get things right.
So through research and through communication, we were able to find basically what Park Street does as a third-party compliance partner and that honestly solved a lot of issues from day one. Otherwise, we would have continued to struggle with state taxes and every state’s different process with acquiring licenses and permits in every state.
It’s it’s a lot. It really is a lot.
What was an early challenge you experienced as a part of the expansion process? How did you overcome this challenge?
I’m proud to say that we are self-funded. We never had any investors, but at the same time, we’ve never taken any money out of it. So everything we’ve made, we’ve put back in. We’re very fortunate for that because we didn’t start with enough and we just put everything back into it.
So in terms of funding, we would get money early for the purchase order so we wouldn’t have to wait. Cashflow is a huge thing in this business with the 30-day terms. Just being able to get money early and pay the interest was a big savior for us.
How has your distribution strategy evolved and how did Park Street play a role in that?
We started during COVID and a lot of funky things happened with distributors, stores, and bars.
A lot of times the distributors were getting rid of suppliers and turning down suppliers so we were very fortunate to have a unique product that was solving some problems for them. That’s when we grew very fast.
We grew all the way to 24 states last year in 2023, but we haven’t added any since. That’s just because we’re trying to get some of those markets right and be a little bit more selective with our distributors and looking for the right partnerships. We have some great distributors and we’ve got some other ones that we’re trying to work on to catch up.
It’s a lot to switch that many vendors, but Park Street made it as seamless as possible. So we were very happy with that.
What are some criteria brands should consider before partnering with a distributor?
Be selective. Don’t just say yes to the next distributor that takes you. Meet with them and ask them questions. See what other kinds of brands they have in their portfolio. Maybe they have three competitive brands that are just like yours and maybe that’s not the right thing for you. The most important thing is when they believe in you, get behind your product, and push it down the line.
I’d also say get a good lawyer and let them read the contracts. Because I was in no position to be reading some of those contracts or signing some of those contracts, but it’s just the nature of the business.
What does your sales support look like and what are the benefits to your system?
I was very fortunate to partner up with Lauren and Laura from Brazen Imports. They have a vast history in the industry, working with some big national brands and they decided to go out on their own and it was the right timing.
I briefly met Lauren years ago when I had a question about compliance and she was gracious enough to answer it for me. Then it all circled back and it was the right timing and a good gut feeling. They basically have taken over the sales for me.
What channel did you target first and why?
It’s funny because we consider ourselves an on-premise brand because that’s our story. We started at a bar and that’s how it was consumed, but ironically our business is probably 85% off-premise retail stores.
It just means we have a lot of room for growth. Even when I was selling and delivering myself, I got rejected a lot less off-premise than on-premise so I shifted my personal strategy to hit the liquor stores. They have a much bigger shelf space so it’s kind of a no-brainer if you’re out there, self-distributing to hit the stores first and build that way. But we have a lot of room to grow on-premise and we’re excited about that.
What’s next for The Original Pickle Shot?
I can’t tell everything, but I don’t think we’ve even scratched the surface. We’ve got 2 SKUs: our original and our spicy. We’re constantly working on innovation.
We also haven’t even scratched the surface with the on-premise and some of the chains so we’re going to start programming things correctly and our goal is to fill out the states and take this nationally because we get a lot of questions and demands and some people don’t understand why they can’t get it in their state or order it online. So we’re just trying to fill that need first and then we can start to have a little bit more fun with it.
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