Newark woman swaps criminology to launch Riviera Iced Tea

A Newark woman has launched her own iced tea brand at the age of 21.

Fran Gresswell ­— founder and chief executive of Riviera Iced Tea ­— was studying criminology at Durham University when she had the idea to create her own brand.

Fran always knew that she wanted to own her own business, despite her original career of choice being a police officer.

She said: “I remember being sat at home during the second lockdown. I had finished my uni work and had watched everything on Netflix so I wanted to find something to do.

“I love travelling and in Europe and the US iced tea is on every menu. You rarely go to a café or restaurant that doesn't sell it and when I went interrailing I drank it every day for a month.

“I came home and struggled to find it. There are two big brands that dominate the market and neither are suitable to sell in hospitality as they are both in plastic bottles.”

With no business background, apart from one single business module during university, Fran spent three months researching and speaking with people for business advice.

She added: “Luckily my parents had a business in Newark and were both incredibly hard working people who believed in my vision, invested into the idea and gave me great advice. I also met Leisa at Find Me The Leads who is based in Newark and worked with me for three months to give me sales training and mentoring.”

Fran admitted that most people weren’t supportive of her decision, such as other students and friends who laughed at her ideas of starting a business at the age of 21.

“Starting a business at 21 was really daunting and I want to encourage others to push past any of the negative opinions and give it a go, if it fails you have given yourself talking points for life and amazing experience to add to your CV,” said the young chief executive.

“I've found that once you've actually created the product a lot of opinions change and the people you will really need to impress like the buyers and key decision makers at large companies actually love the story of a young founder and have never judged me for my age.”

Riviera Iced tea drinks are vegan, natural, low cal and gluten-free.

Current flavours are peach iced tea and lemon iced tea, a third flavour will be created this summer. The peach iced tea was named the fourth best selling drink in the fridge of a store on Regent Street.

The drinks can be bought at the website for £9 a box of six or £30 for a box for 24.

Fran concluded: “I'm so proud of the branding of our can, it's something I was so determined to get right, with my aim being to bring a more premium product to market.

“I wanted something that would appeal to 16-35 year olds and could be sold at your local café, restaurant and at a picnic in the park!”