This article was originally published on Inside FMCG.

Chrish Graebner – inventor of Level Lemonade (Australia’s very own high-magnesium, low-sugar soft drink) can hardly believe himself that they are about to sell the 1,000,000th bottle since it’ was launched in May 2019.

“They say the first million is the hardest, because it has to overcome your own (dis-)beliefs. I certainly was confident about the idea – but so many things more than a good idea are needed”, says Chrish.

“A tremendous amount of work – but more importantly trust and support from people in the retail world – is needed to get to where we are now. I will be forever grateful to those who have given us the benefit of the doubt in the early days. “Our sales are trending upwards significantly, and we have every intention to further grow the franchise by expanding availability and keep innovating the Level Lemonade franchise,” he said. “When we launched the initial three flavours (Original, Pineapple and Orange) – my idea was to replace whichever the weakest with something new. When launching Raspberry, the sales of existing flavours was so even that taking one off the market would have seemed ludicrous and I am happy to report that sales of all four variants were well above forecast in Q4!” Level Beverages, which also represents the German 28 Black Energy and American Arizona Iced Tea brands, is planning a push for innovation and distribution through all main channels in the year ahead.