Oxygen Confectionery Corp. sets to disrupt the $232 billion global confectionery market, which has long been dominated by three major players, with its patented dispensers that allow people to 'socially distance' sugar-free gums and mints from their sweaty palms, and consume them in a clean and convenient way wherever they go.
The overall food industry has experienced rapid transformation over the past decade with the increasing demand for sustainable and interactive packaging, as well as convenient products made with ingredients that average consumers are familiar with. However, hardly any gum and mint brands have successfully delivered a packaging so far that enables the consumer to refill the products. Not to mention, with the growing concerns around food safety issues due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, consumers are struggling to find a confectionery product they can eat without touching their often unsanitized hands first. That is how Oxygen Confectionery Corp. came into being when founder Matthew Lee, who has a mechanical engineering background, invented the portable, refillable, reusable dispenser a few years ago, and has successfully obtained two U.S. patents, and patents in Europe, Australia, and South Korea, with others in India, China, and Japan, expected to be approved soon.
Not only
our dispensers have been sampled out to interested executives at confectionery heavyweights, including Mars & Wrigley, Ferrero, and Perfetti Van Melle, they have also attracted tremendously positive feedback from consumers, as our Facebook demo videos garnered over 6 million impressions, and reached nearly 5 million audiences. Their 8.87% unique click-through rate (CTR) is also significantly higher than the average CTR for Facebook ads which is between 2-5%. Audiences between 13-17 years old also recorded the highest UTCR at nearly 15% , which lends our company a competitive advantage to target this group with our chewing gums and mints as they have been largely ignored by some of the recently emerged confectionery brands, such as Simply Gum that primarily targets millennials already having a good disposable income with its premium positioning.
Oxygen Confectionery is well aware that consumers overall are increasingly reducing sugar for health and wellness, yet the traditional sugar market remains massive - that's why we set out to create both sugar-added and sugar-free mints, and a line of sugar-free gums available in four most popular flavors on the market: mixed fruit, berry splash, spearmint, and peppermint, that allow us to target nearly all of the global audiences. Polaris Market Research data showed the global sugar confectionery market is anticipated to reach $69.5 billion in sales by 2026, while the value of sugar-free market is also expected to rise considerably during the forecast period.
Inspired by PEZ Candy, the combination of our cleaner, easy-to-use dispensers and high-quality candies made here in North America enables to us better compete against those traditional, mass produced sugar products, since our products are not confined to the regular checkout aisle, which is increasingly be replaced with self checkout machines that don't necessarily allow the traditional gums, mints and other candies, such as Excel, Trident, M&M's, Skittles, and the like to 'shine'. That's also one of the reasons why the category sales have been flattening in recent years. Oxygen Confectionery's initial brand Boys & Girls, however, can be placed at different parts of a retailer since we also have two other types of packaging - one-time refill box and a protein powder type of jar allowing consumers to refill their dispensers up to 20 times. We are optimistic this invention and go-to market strategy will help save the category's sluggish sales and retailers that are experiencing rapid digital transformation.
Oxygen Confectionery has brought Douglas Yu on board as the chief operating officer. Douglas has unique insights and knowledge about consumer packaged goods gained from his years of experience writing about the consumer packaged goods industry, with topics ranging from product development, M&A, PE investments to litigations, for publications, including William Reed Business Media and Forbes, as a business and financial journalist. Douglas Yu is best known as the U.S. candyman as he has been invited by several mainstream media outlets, including NPR Marketplace, Bloomberg Radio, and The Washington Post, to provide commentary on the confectionery industry.
While our packaging has been created by international designers who have decades of experience, and the website is under reconstruction, we are already in the final stages of signing partnerships with both North American and European co-manufacturers, and should enter full production as soon as we close our fundraising. We are asking for $800,000 to $1 million from a potential investor, and offering a 3-5% stake in our company to help us launch the products into the market, and facilitate the next-generation of candy consumption.