Danish start-up Heaply
conquers Europe with vegan confectionery in Doystyle Bag
As a start-up supplier of vegan confectionery, Danish brand Heaply faced all kinds of challenges. Not only during the development and production of tasty quality products, but also with the development of the best fitting retail packaging. During an intensive collaboration with Nomi Co-Packing, they opted for the handy Doystyle Bag. Heaply founder Jens Hoe looks back on an instructive period during which he found a particularly reliable partner in Nomi Co-Packing.
It could be different
"Due to a corporate reorganisation, I had to leave my role as Global Category Manager Food at an international retailer. During the few months I was unemployed at home, I felt I needed to do something meaningful and having a purpose beyond a normal job. Like many other people, I have been eating vegetarian and vegan more and more in recent years. I decided to research the confectionery market and saw that many products came from the UK, Germany and the Netherlands and that the vegan brands looked quite frugal. I got the feeling that things could be different."
Tasty confectionery, but vegan
"With a budget of just 20,000 euro, I started Kopenhagen Konfectionery in January 2021, which in retrospect may not have been the best time. In the summer of the same year, I came up with Heaply; a plant-based confectionery brand with a fresh look. In doing so, I didn't necessarily want to talk about why veganism is a good choice. No, I wanted to offer tasty confectionery without frills, but vegan and with a bit of humour. Less than a year later, the brand was ready!"
Delicious for everyone
"We started with an alternative to popular sweets, such as banana mallows. Normally, milk chocolate and gelatine are used, but these are animal ingredients. We chose dark, milk-free chocolate and seaweed proteins as a substitute for gelatine. Furthermore, we didn’t want to use palm oil and artificial colourings and flavourings. In March 2022 we ran the first batch of five different products and two months later, these products were already on the shelf space at a Danish retailer and with an approachable price. After all, we don't want to enter a niche market. We want to be liked by everyone. Not just by people who consciously choose vegan. That’s why packaging design is also an important part of the brand."
From standard pouch to Doystyle Bag
"These five different flavours were packed in a standard pre-formed pouch, but that was not ideal. Via my network I heard about Nomi Co-Packing. They could help me develop a new pouch. I first contacted them in early 2024. Much discussion followed about how they work and what’s involved. Later, during my visit to their production site in the Netherlands, I was struck by how professional things are at NOMI. We are still just a small company, but they really operate at Champions League level. To offer a better alternative to the standard pouch, we opted for a Doystyle bag with smaller dimensions, aiming at an easy grab-and-go product solution."
Problem resolved calmly and professionally
"During production, the people at NOMI constantly check the process. I myself am rather impatient, but I have since realised that this is actually very important. For the final production, we faced an issue with our foils. The raw material turned out not to be of the right quality. As a result we had to switch foil supplier in the last minute. With the support of NOMI we managed to reach the right level and optimal size for the pending project. Obviously, something like this is not the perfect start of a partnership but the people at NOMI remained calm and professional ensuring the project would run as soon the foil was ready. Of course, it also had to be tested first, which put a lot of pressure on their organisation. In the end, the testing and production went smoothly and Nomi Co-Packing took a lot of worries off our hands. Thanks to their flexible attitude, we were still able to deliver the more than 200,000 bags to our customers at the beginning of June, just one month later than the original deadline. Fortunately, this was not a problem for our customer."
Agreements are really agreements
"Working with the people at Nomi Co-Packing has put us on a huge learning curve ourselves. With the experience gained, we are going to structure our own supply chain better. I have also learned that agreements with NOMI really are agreements. They are very reliable and professional, which is exactly what we need. Our confectionery products are now in 1,600 shops across Europe and we see opportunities to significantly expand the number of countries where Heaply is in shops. Knowing that Nomi Co-Packing can easily scale up to large numbers does not worry me."
Like Heaply, would you like to rely on committed professionals to package your confectionery, chocolate, bakery products, dry pasta or snack products? Then contact us without obligation for more information or a suitable quotation.