How to build a beverage brand: Recess on carving out the relaxation category
While he launched the range in 2018 with a CBD drink, he always had a vision for the brand to be much more: aiming to create a platform of products for helping people to relax and unwind.
And he's successfully expanded the brand with the launches of Recess Mood in 2021 (magnesium beverages), Recess Mood powders (2021) and Recess Zero Proof in 2023 (non-alcoholic mocktails).
The brand has also just launched two new mocktails (Classic Cosmo and Island Spritz) this summer.
Recess can be found in 18,000 retailers across the US - including Target, Albertsons, Wegmans, Sprouts and CVS - but more than 50% of its sales come from ecommerce (where it's the largest alcohol-alternative brand on Amazon).
The brand is doubling sales year-on-year: and its next milestone will be to cross $100m in sales.
What’s next?
The brand’s platform is ‘Take a Recess’ – leaving the brand open to expansion in any direction…
BD: How did the idea of Recess come about?
Ben Witte: The origin of Recess came in 2016 when I decided I wanted to start my own company.
I’d spent the first six years of my career in Silicon Valley, the tech world, but I’ve always been a creative at heart.
At that time, it started to feel to me like we were entering a new period in history, driven by technology, starting to leave people feeling stressed out and anxious.
And I realized people would soon be prioritizing mental wellness, looking for healthier ways to relax than alcohol and cigarettes or even pharmaceuticals.
Then I observed the rise of this new class of functional ingredients – CBD, adaptogens, nootropics, even THC.
The lightbulb moment was to bring all this into a new type of beverage. I like to say we’re the Red Bull for Relaxation!
"My thesis in 2016 was that - if the past 30 years had seen the rise of 'stimulation' driven by caffeinated beverages such as energy drinks and coffee - the next 30 years would see the rise of the healthy relaxation product space driven by consumers' increasing focus on mental wellness, stress relief and alcohol moderation (Red Bull and Starbucks were started in 1987, 30 years before I had the idea for Recess)."
- Ben Witte
Why did you decide to expand beyond CBD?
I never viewed Recess as a CBD company.
Just like I have never heard Red Bull or Monster referred to as caffeine companies - they were brands built around marketing the feeling of energy and stimulation.
We modeled the Recess brand architecture in the same way, focused on marketing the feeling of relaxation and building a lifestyle brand world around the beverage to market it.
Yes, we launched with a CBD product, where CBD was one of four functional ingredients.
But consumers weren’t thinking about a CBD brand, they were thinking about a relaxation brand.
We wanted to market the solution, not the ingredient.
In fact, our CBD line is now less than 8% of our sales!
What does ‘success’ look like to you?
I think over the past five years, we’ve validated the thesis I had of a broad relaxation healthy platform, comprised of multiple subcategories – whether that be functional relaxation, zero proof alcohol alternatives, relaxation supplements.
And we’ve validated our retail sales strategy – Albertsons and Target are taking us to thousands and thousands of retailers.
We’re now entering our next phrase of the business: the next five years will be about scaling that dramatically.
The way I think about it is like this: This is where energy was 20 years ago, and the growth is going to compound over the next 20 years. It’s consumers focusing on their mental wellbeing, it’s a desire to reduce stress and anxiety, to moderate alcohol consumption, improve sleep. These are not fads, they’re long term trends in their relatively early days.
The consumer is actually ahead of where the market is. There’s a tremendous amount of room to grow.
You didn’t start out in the beverage industry. Tell us about your background - and has it helped you build your brand?
Coming from Silicon Valley and from San Fran in this golden era of 2010 to 2016, my first job out of college was a three person start-up, building an influencer market platform for social media.
It was an idea that was ahead of its time, it was too early – I think we still had MySpace back then! – but it was relevant in learning how to build a brand in a social media world. That’s been extremely relevant for building Recess.
And Silicon Valley is not just about technology: it’s about the philosophy for company building. Having a perspective on where this world is going, creating opportunities.
I think being an outsider to the beverage industry can be a competitive advantage - definitely when you complement it with beverage expertise. I built up a very experienced executive team in early 2019 for Recess. There’s a nice balance of me thinking from a fresh perspective, selectively rejecting conventional wisdom, but also having the best in class people on areas like supply chain, sales and operations. That’s a very powerful combination.
What’s your poison?
Mezcal (at the weekends)
What’s your worst vice?
Probably X (Twitter)
Worst work mistake?
When we launched, it was literally out of my apartment. We pressed 'go' and it took off. The twist was we couldn’t scale the original CBD line into national retailers - we had a product that could only be sold in independents and regional accounts.* We were really well known for our brand marketing, but perhaps too focused - it was a bit premature. In retrospect, I would have slowed down a little bit.
What brand are you jealous of and why?
When we launched, I was envious of beverage brands like Olipop, Poppi and Liquid Death: who were able to scale rapidly while we were constrained because of CBD. Major retailers just weren't looking at CBD. Happily, that's not the case anymore.
That said, that forced us to become a brand platform earlier, and we now have multiple product lines that are performing extremely well.
Biggest waste of money?
Going out for a coffee every day
When has your pride caused a fall?
Adjusting the plan too late when we realized the constraints in scaling CBD. I wish I’d followed my intuition and expanded to other products earlier
* Major retailers stayed away from CBD products at this time due to regulatory uncertainties.
Tell us about your marketing and social media strategy
I was always inspired by Red Bull. They were never marketing caffeine. It was a lifestyle brand and media company.
With Recess, our early Instagram strategy was really focused on content that was humorous and thought provoking. But also helped people feel calm, cool, collected. This idea that we’re living through crazy times - a product that helps you relax to get through it - was important.
The most important thing in any consumer product company is generating word of mouth marketing and user generated content. From the early days of Recess, we got a tremendous amount of organic posting on Instagram, and we're now finding that on TikTok.
I have this principle: a key metric is how can you generate the most impact for the least amount of money. We have a variety of strategies to accomplish that.
What’s your top tip to other beverage entrepreneurs?
Be unique and differentiated. Does the world really need another traditional sparkling water, another energy drink?
The second thing is to really listen to your customers. How are they talking about the brand? What are they saying in customer reviews? What are they saying on social media? How do they talk about it? Really, deeply listen to what your customers are saying and evolve your positioning based on those insights.
How do you start and end your working day?
I’m an early riser, so I typically start meetings at 7am or 8am. I like to get up, have a coffee, and get to work - I'm most productive in the morning.
At the end of the day? As a founder, you’re never truly signing off! But I like to work out and cook dinner – I find cooking to be relaxing.
What’s the best part of your job?
I like connecting dots. I like thinking: where is the world going, where are markets and categories going? We’ve made a number of really smart bets that weren’t the conventional wisdom. When we launched, no-one was talking about relaxation beverages. And then when we launched Recess Mood and bet on magnesium – no one was talking about Magnesium as a functional ingredient that could be leveraged in functional relaxation beverages.
I like making early bets based on my view of where the markets are going, and what consumers are going to want.
