How to build a beverage brand: Bulletproof on shifting from biohacking to the big time

Bulletproof Coffee was launched in 2011 by Dave Asprey: a successful Silicon Valley entrepreneur who was inspired by a creamy cup of yak butter tea while trekking in Tibet.

The concept of ‘bulletproof coffee’ (otherwise known as butter coffee) and the bulletproof diet became about more than the brand: finding fame with biohackers who valued the high-fat, low carb innovation.

But today Bulletproof Coffee is about offering a wide range of functional coffee, alongside creamers, oils and collagen, to meet the wide variety of needs from everyday consumers. There’s still the Bulletproof Coffee Kit (coffee with Brain Octane C8 MCT Oil and grass-fed ghee), but also a range of products exploring functional coffee and then additional lines such as collagen, protein bars and supplements.

Bulletproof is found in over 10,000 stores in the US including Sprouts, Whole Foods, Target, Kroger and natural food retailers.

So how does a brand go from its biohacking roots to the mass market? Andy van Ark, chief commercial officer, takes us through the journey.

Introduce us to Bulletproof Coffee!

Bulletproof Coffee, at its core, is about great coffee with functional benefits.

Historically, and to this day, are brand is centered around clean ingredients. So we test all of our coffee for toxins and mold to make sure we’ve got a really strong base that that’s going to be taste delicious but also be as clean as it comes.

And then it’s about building from there! Adding functional ingredients that help support consumer wellness, creating a functional line of coffees - like High Achiever and Maximizer - where we double down in core consumer areas. Benefits like focus, mental clarity, gut health, and really honing in on what consumers are looking for within functional beverages and providing as many options as possible.

It’s about how to make the best coffee, but make coffee with more behind it that that the consumer can benefit from.

What does Bulletproof Coffee taste like?

It tastes great!

But this is a common question that we get, especially when you when you add other things to your coffee... consumers are concerned its going to have negative impacts on the taste of the coffee. And it really doesn’t.

We’ve got a very clean, pure cup of coffee, and then we add more ingredients on top of that. But when we do so, we’re very conscious to make sure that the benefits are there and efficacious: but at the same time also making sure that the cup of coffee stands on its own, and it’s a delicious cup of coffee that any consumer will enjoy out there.

So we look at it as first and foremost as delicious coffee: premium coffee that that tastes like the best cup of coffee you’ve ever had.

Bulletproof, as a brand, is not the same as it was a decade ago. Take us through what’s changed and why…

Bulletproof Coffee, as a brand, has just gone through a total brand overhaul. Part of that is really centered around driving more accessibility to the brand for consumers.

Historically, the brand had been around the biohacking space and we see this concept of functional coffee as relevant for everybody. There’s the history of the brand with the founder, Dave Asprey, and the Bulletproof Diet. We maintain a lot of that information online: so the brand evolution is not about ignoring or dismissing the history of the brand: but it’s about evolving to be more approachable to more consumers who it’s relevant for.

What we’ve seen over the past few years is that consumers really respond to functional coffee. So we knew we needed to make this pivot towards new branding and coffee as a focal point for us.

Over the last few years, we’ve seen huge growth in our coffee portfolio as well as our new functional coffee items like High Achiever that we knew had really sparked something with consumers.

Bulletproof has been through a lot of changes over the last few years: Dave Asprey stepped down as CEO in 2019 and the brand has become part of Bia Foods. How do you maintain a consistent sense of brand identity for Bulletproof while still evolving as a brand and navigating structural changes?

It goes back to the consumer. The brand is a construct in the mind of the consumer. So when we go about these changes, we take that into consideration.

We’ve talked about the Bulletproof Diet and Bulletproof Coffee recipe and we have to keep those things in mind. We start with what consumers know about us and love about us and maintain that while evolving with the marketplace and what consumers want.

The benefit of our organization is we’ve tremendous freedom to do that: and we’ve got people who have worked for Bulletproof for many years and are imputing into the direction of the brand.

So it’s been about working with internal teams, working with consumers, and then making strategic choices as to how we evolve the brand towards the direction that the consumer and the marketplace are going in.

We’re very happy with our brand redesign and direction, because it’s centered around those clean ingredients, natural ingredients, which have always been the hallmark of the brand. And now that’s moving forward to put the emphasis on giving the consumer what they want.

How do you pick out what functionalities consumers want, then progress those ideas into an end product?

It always starts with the consumer. What they are looking for, the need states they have, etc.

We don’t just look at functional coffees and functional ingredients in the coffee category: we look at it quite broadly as to what general wellness trends are out there.

Then we start to dive more heavily into the development process and understanding what natural ingredients support the benefits we’re looking for. And then we want to make sure that consumers feel a very tangible benefit with our products.

And it’s a balance with R&D. I say it’s part art, part science: understanding how to assess the effectiveness of the functional ingredients with the coffee itself. We have three Q graders on our team who are coffee experts, and they’re able to find coffees that complement the functional ingredients and leverage functional ingredients that complement certain coffees and coffee roasts in the right way.

So it is a really challenging process, but we’ve got a great team to be able to deliver on it.

What do you want the brand to achieve over the next 12 months?

We definitely want the consumer to adopt the new brand positioning and be more open to what the opportunity for Bulletproof can be, and we’re really excited and optimistic about that. So we’re gauging how consumers are responding to it.

On top of that, we’re excited about new products. This is a space within coffee that when you combine wellness and coffee together, there’s a tremendous amount of opportunity for innovation and new product development. So we’ve got a lot of exciting products coming to the marketplace in the next 6-12 months.

And we want to expand our presence in the marketplace beyond our online sales. We want to push more of our products out to where consumers are shopping for coffee. You know, 97% of coffee dollars are spent in grocery and in mass retail, and so we want to push more of our products out there (we’ve just received confirmation on expanded distribution at Kroger!)

Your experience includes selling pet food with Mars and Cesar; breakfast burritos with Red’s All Natural; and natural food with Catalina Crunch. What have you learned from these roles that remains relevant at Bulletproof?

Throughout my career around building brands, and more recently in building better-for-you health brands, is really starting with the consumer, making sure that you are aware of their needs, you’re aware of the trends.

But you don’t want to be a follower in the marketplace. You really want to be able to establish yourself as a leader that’s leading through innovation, messaging and delivering on a consumer need in a meaningful and distinct way in the marketplace.

So for Bulletproof, there are other functional coffees out there: but we’re delivering function in the best way possible. We’re not just focusing on mushrooms or a single ingredient, we’re looking at all avenues of functional ingredients.

And you have to focus heavily on the product. You asked what Bulletproof tastes like… the days of health food being something consumers lift their nose at is gone. We have to have products that taste just as good, if not better, than the mainstream products out there.

What’s your top tip to other beverage brand builders?

Really understand the meaning of your brand for the consumer. If that’s not clear internally in your organization, on your board, or with a consumer survey, you need to work on that.

Make sure it’s very, very clear and straightforward what you are - and what you’re not.

And then be relentless about conveying that to the consumer through product innovation and product launches and being consistent with what you are as a brand.

How do you start and end your working day?

I start my day with a great cup of Bulletproof coffee!

And at the end of the day I make time to wind down, remove myself from the work environment, and decompress after a full day.