Raising a glass to ethical drinking

Scroll on 13 years, and in 2017, the Foundation invested £1.8 million in water, sanitation and hygiene programmes across the world, fixing 325 broken pumps, training 1,264 people in water management and educating 10,071 people through hygiene campaigns, reaching over 180,000 people in total. So what took Duncan Goose from there to here?
Having re-mortgaged his flat to fund the iniative, Goose began his first big production run of 12,000 bottles in July 2005, on the same day that the charity concert Live 8 launched. As an ex-marketeer for J Walter Thompson, Duncan knew an opportunity when he saw one. He drove to the offices of Bob Geldof and Richard Curtis to pitch the idea that One should become the official water for the event. Later, images of Brad Pitt, on stage with U2 and clutching a bottle of One, would be broadcast to a global audience over a billion-strong.
Away from the heady world of showbiz, One secured its first retail listing in Total petrol stations in the autumn of 2005. Moreover, the ethos of the brand captured the imagination to the extent that Duncan soon had a board populated with executives from companies such as Red Bull, and had secured stockists including leading UK supermarkets and World Duty Free. It wasn’t all plain sailing, though: when the recession hit in 2011, the Co-op, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose ended their contracts with One, forcing the company to shrink from 25 people to just three. How did the business bounce back? By concentrating, says Duncan Goose, on what the business does best: selling ethical water: “We increased One Water’s distribution across the UK, winning key national accounts including Starbucks and Virgin Atlantic, and expanded our range of ethical drinks to include juiced water, flavoured water and, more recently – this year, in fact – One Less Bottle: planet-friendly water in a carton.
Arguably the brand’s largest shift, however, came last year, when it launched One Gin. Development of the gin and bottle was completed in just under six months, working towards a launch in time for World Water Day, March 2017. The primary aim in moving into spirits was to see the brand reach its target of raising £20 million for The One Foundation by 2020. By why a gin? Says Duncan Goose: “With the UK gin market making its biggest comeback since Hogarth’s times, it was a natural step for us to broaden our drinks portfolio into this exciting new area, helping to build our donation and make a difference to the 884 million people worldwide who still don’t have access to clean water.”
Adds One Gin’s co-founder, Ian Spooner, “With no experience in the spirits market other than a personal penchant for gin, we needed to partner with experts in order to realise our vision. Working closely with an old business contact, Kate O’Neil, we met with a number of distillers before selecting Sarah Thompson, award-winning master distiller at Blackdown Distillery, to work with us on developing our gin. We experimented with a number of locally foraged botanicals, before eventually settling upon fresh sage. Not only does sage provide our distinctive flavour profile, but the genus name of the plant derives from the Latin word ‘salvare’ meaning ‘to save’ – linking in with our brand mission.”
Increasing production to support its growth, One Gin is now distilled in the Midlands, in one of the oldest working copper gin stills in the UK.
Clearly, the One team are doing something very right: One Gin was awarded a Gold at last year’s International Wine & Spirit Competition, with the judges describing it as, “complex, original and delicious”.
While delighted with the award, Duncan Goose is keen to point out, ‘‘It’s also the first spirit brand to fund clean water projects in the world’s poorest communities.”
Both the One Brand and Duncan Goose have celebrated numerous milestones in the last thirteen years, including winning a Great Briton Award and an European Entrepreneur of the Year award. But of all the highlights, the one Duncan treasures most is his meeting in 2015 with the young girl in the photo who had inspired him almost a decade before. After months of research, and with the help of local NGOs in Nairobi and facial recognition specialists in the UK, he finally found Ann – and The One Foundation still keeps in touch with her and supports her family today. Like the O in the first letter of its name, it seems the One brand has come full circle.