When Luke and Oscar Grieve set out to build Be Spring, they were not simply launching another challenger soft drinks brand. They were trying to rebuild a family business story that had been abruptly cut short, while creating a distinctly Scottish sparkling iced tea brand they believe can sit on the shelves of one of the UK’s major grocers.

The brothers grew up on the Isle of Mull and first worked alongside one another in their family’s seafood company, the Ethical Shellfish Company. They supplied hand-dived scallops to leading restaurants, including to the UK’s capital.

That business had traded for 15 years before the pandemic devastated hospitality demand almost overnight. “We went from 10,000 scallops a week to zero in three days,” Oscar says. “It was a proud family company, and it was just taken away.”

For the brothers, the closure was a painful lesson in resilience. It left them with a clear ambition to one day build together again. “As soon as that [business] came to a close, one of the things we promised each other is we will come back and we will start another brand together,” notes Luke.

That promise became Be Spring, a sparkling iced tea brand made with pure Scottish water, no added sugar and no artificial ingredients. The idea came after both brothers moved into the drinks industry, with Oscar joining Diageo and Luke taking a graduate apprenticeship with CCEP. These roles provided first-hand experience of category trends, distribution and retailer expectations.

“It all just started to add together quite nicely,” explains Oscar. “The trend of no alcohol, the trend of no sugar, the Scottish freshness, the lack of a Scottish iced tea brand leading the category, and then the name.”

Isle inspiration

The brand’s name is rooted in Mull. Oscar says spring is the moment when the island comes alive, and the brothers wanted that feeling to carry through the product. “On the Isle of Mull, we thought that the best time of the year was when the sun came out. We want our customers to drink our product and spring through life,” he shares.

The sparkling ices tea is made with water from Scotland’s Loch Katrine

Scottishness is not being used as a light-touch marketing cue. The brothers say the can design is inspired by the mountains and coastline around Mull, while the liquid itself is made with Scottish water. The aim is to build a drinks brand that feels modern and energetic, but still grounded in where it came from.

That foundation matters because Be Spring’s growth plan is deliberately ambitious. Over the next 12 months, the brand will focus on building visibility through events and sampling before pushing for wider distribution.

“We are building to that period of getting that grocery listing with a big grocer. That’s our ambition, 100 per cent,” states Oscar. “We want to build a fizz and a bit of excitement, and we’re going to do that through founder-led marketing.”

For a challenger brand entering a crowded soft drinks market, that founder-led approach is central. Oscar and Luke are taking a hands on approach, rather than building from behind a desk.

Sampling plans including being present at large-scale events, including Scottish Rugby’s Murrayfield, the PGA Tour and Burghley Horse Trials, as they look to get cans directly into consumers’ hands.

Oscar says the choice of venues is intentional. “We just wanted to partner with incredibly vibrant, interesting events and stadiums that have all different types of people coming along to them,” he says. “The main thing with Murrayfield, which is the real one that stood out to us, is the big bold stadium in Scotland.”

Subscribe to Grocery Gazette for free

Sign up here to get the latest grocery and food news each morning

Convenience is also firmly on the radar. Having grown up on an Isle, the brothers understand the role that operators such as Co-op play in local communities. They see smaller-format retail as a natural extension of the brand’s route to market. “Convenience, absolutely, is a massive thing for us,” Oscar says, with Luke adding: “We’ve seen the growth that convenience is starting to have as well. It’s definitely something we’d look to go into.”

Supermarket success

Looking ahead, the ultimate prize for the brand is national grocery. Oscar is clear that Be Spring’s goals go beyond being a regional success story. “Our ambition is to take this as big as we can possibly take it, and go into a big grocer” he says.

Oscar [left] and Luke [right] will keep “the founder-led energy” as they scale Be Spring

Luke stresses that is something the brothers are acutely aware of: “You see brands and they almost forget why they started in the first place, and that’s something we’re really conscious of.

“No matter how much success and how much growth we see with the business, we’ll keep the same attention to detail we had when we produced our first can.”

Keeping the business close to its roots is equally important, Oscar adds: “We’re always going to be founder-led in our marketing. Luke and I are always going to be boots on the ground, and really in touch with Be Spring, keeping it grounded and keeping it honest.”

There is also a personal accountability that comes from building a Scottish family business. Oscar jokes that they “wouldn’t get away with losing that identity” when returning to Mull to see their grandmother in Tobermory.

Luke adds that the company wants to keep working with Scottish partners as it grows. “We are really passionate about also just keeping the business rooted in Scotland, wherever we can,” he says.

The brother dynamic is a large part of that story. The pair admit they have batted around plenty of “bad ideas” before landing on iced tea, and Oscar laughs that they often answer at the same time. But the closeness appears to be a strength rather than a complication. “We’ve always been best friends as long as working together,” Oscar says. “We’ve always dreamed of coming back with another family company, giving it another shot.”

That mix of shared history, drinks industry experience and local identity gives Be Spring a narrative that many challenger brands try to manufacture but few can authentically claim. The brothers are not hiding the scale of the goal: they want the cans in major grocers, more flavours in the pipeline and a brand that can travel beyond Scotland without becoming detached from it.

For now, the focus is on building the “fizz” around Be Spring before making the leap into bigger listings. If they can maintain the founder-led energy, the brotherly shorthand and the Scottish freshness that shaped the first cans, the pair believe they have a product capable of moving from island inspiration to national fixture.