Vegan, organic food and raw chocolate brand Pana Organic has sold more than 15 million units of chocolate bars and more than 50 million products since the first Pana store opened in Melbourne in August 2013.
For Pana Organic founder and CEO Pana Barbounis, who established the Melbourne-based business in 2012, a lot has happened since the early days when he personally delivered handmade, fudgy packs of dark chocolate on his Vespa to local, independent stores around Melbourne.
Pana Organic’s turnover now sits just under $30 million per annum in Australia, with the brand collaborating with a network of 50 suppliers and established long-term partnerships, and boasting an Instagram following of more than 235,000 followers.
The company has a team of 10 people working at its headquarters in Coburg, Victoria, with 50 of its staff at the same location for production and more than 100 across co-manufacturing partners.
Back in 2015, Barbounis spoke to SmartCompany about his vision for the business.
“I want Pana Chocolate to be the number one raw chocolate company in the world by 2017,” he told SmartCompany’s Eloise Keating at the time.
However, nine years later, Barbounis says Pana Organic is firmly focused on its home country.
“We are continuing to build within the local market with innovation and want to continue to be the first to market as an organic, plant-based, and gluten-free brand,” he says.
“We take pride in knowing that we were the first organic, vegan, and gluten-free chocolate brand to ever be stocked in Coles and Woolworths supermarket stores nationwide.”
For the last two years, Pana Organic has been refocusing on its structure and costs, with the brand to spend the next two years focusing on growth and noise.
Barbounis says Pana Organic managed to break into the market very quickly with its innovation and organic raw vegan treats.
“However, we soon found that others were joining in, which was not a surprise, though it becomes challenging to invest so much in new product development and then compete against ‘made-in-a-home’ kitchen and non-organic products,” he explains.
“The brand focused on the Australian FMCG market by leveraging learnings from overseas and physical stores in Melbourne and Sydney.
“We engaged in conversations with the major retailers and launched into the grocery space in a big way.
“Along the way, we decided to be ‘always organic, always gluten-free, and always plant-based’, moving away from some of the initial USPs and focusing on being true to the above.”
The natural progression for the brand, says Barbounis, was to take the Pana brand across categories – with the creation of frozen desserts, spreads, drink blends, baking, and snack bar ranges.
“We now want to continuously focus on domestic growth working with all partners and major and independent retailers to become Australia’s leading organic, plant-based, and gluten-free brand,” he says.
“We are refocusing on our foundations of chocolate and exploring another category that we believe the Australian market is awaiting.
“What’s even more exciting is the internal restructuring and support from my joint CEO (Nitesh Jain) and business partner (Michael Saba), allowing me to get back to NPD and branding.”
From 2018 to 2022, Pana Organic focused on expanding its range.
This period marked the introduction of several category launches, including frozen desserts, powdered drink blends, a baking range, hazelnut spreads, ‘mylk’ chocolate and further expansion of the chocolate range.
During this journey, Barbounis says the one thing that has remained consistent is that Pana’s chocolate is still hand-made and hand-wrapped in Melbourne.
“Our core proposition has never been altered, and we will continue to stick to it,” he says.
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