YEW Drink's UK-First Pickle Sparkling Water Sells Out, Secures Ocado Exclusive
On 1 July, Manchester-based YEW Drink, co-founded by chef Jesse Jenkins, launched what it states is the UK's first pickle-flavoured sparkling water. Featuring briny dill and fresh cucumber, the six-ingredient drink sold out on YEW's direct site within weeks and will now launch with a six-month Ocado grocery exclusive at £1.69 a can. The two-calorie drink contains zero sugar or artificial sweeteners, aligning with YEW's focus on natural taste over wellness claims.
YEW's Pickle has done the thing every challenger drink dreams of: run out. Launched on 1 July exclusively through Planet Organic and yewdrink.com, the UK's first pickle-flavoured sparkling water is now showing sold out on the brand's own store, weeks into its debut.
The recipe reads like a chef's answer to a dare, because it is one. Six ingredients — sparkling water, organic kombucha, natural cucumber and dill pickle flavourings, lactic acid, salt — deliver the brine, the tang and the freshness at two calories a can, with the kombucha and lactic acid doing the fermented work sweeteners usually fake.
"For us, flavour always starts with food," says co-founder and cook Jesse Jenkins, known as A.D.I.P. — Another Day in Paradise. "Pickle works so well in the kitchen because it cuts through richness, lifts a dish, and makes you want more."
The company behind it was built on a gap its other founder spotted from 5,000 miles away. "I spent nearly a decade living in the US, where stylish soft seltzers are mainstream, and noticed a significant gap in the UK market," says co-founder Francesca Zampi — a gap YEW has filled since its 2024 nationwide launch through Selfridges, growing to more than 2,000 retail partnerships (company figures) across a range that now spans Pink Rhubarb, Green Apple, Yuzu Grapefruit and Pickle.
What YEW won't do is make the claims its category runs on. The brand's own words: "More energy. Better sleep. Inner calm. We can't promise you any of that." In a market of functional sodas promising gut health by the can, YEW launched the most gut-health-coded flavour in food — and attached no health claim to it at all.
Next comes the nation's fridge: a six-month grocery exclusive with Ocado at £1.69 per can, taking Pickle from cult sell-out to weekly shop. The brand's serving suggestion remains on record: straight from a cold can — or in a glass "with a little cornichon on a stick if you're feeling boujie."
Trend context
Pickle flavour has rapidly moved from niche condiment to mainstream cultural moment, with CNN declaring it a 'main character' and Kerry's 2026 Taste Charts showing dill pickle growth up to 900% across categories. This trend has specifically reached British beverages, noted by FoodNavigator's July report on booming pickle drinks. YEW Drink's sell-out pickle sparkling water, selected by BeverageDaily among its top summer launches, offers a timely test: can a bold, natural flavour with zero health claims outperform the functional soda market, challenging the industry's focus on 'credible health benefits'?
About YEW Drink Ltd
Why we exist
"YEW" is what surfers shout at a peak moment — and it's the brand's whole argument: life is complicated, drinks don't need to be. YEW exists to make sparkling water worth shouting about, as a genuine alternative both to sugary sodas and to wellness drinks promising a better personality — crisp, honest refreshment made by people who care about taste.
How we do it
Flavour starts with food, led by co-founder and chef Jesse Jenkins. YEW uses radically short, totally natural ingredient lists and UK water, produced entirely in the UK. Recipes are built to complement meals, offering refreshment like water but with the feel of a treat. The commitment extends to sustainability, with plastic removed wherever possible and infinitely recyclable aluminium cans.
What we do
YEW makes super-natural sparkling water in four flavours — Pink Rhubarb, Green Apple, Yuzu Grapefruit and Pickle — in 330ml cans, sold direct with subscriptions from £1.39 a can and through more than 2,000 retail partnerships including Selfridges and Planet Organic. Founded in London in 2023, co-founded by Francesca Zampi and chef Jesse Jenkins.
Why it matters
The enemy is the modern soft-drinks shelf: cans built like chemistry sets on one side, wellness drinks promising energy, sleep and inner calm on the other. Somewhere between the sugar and the sermons, the simple job — a delicious drink with nothing in it you'd rather avoid — went unfilled.
Who it's for
The person who wants something grown-up with dinner that isn't alcohol and isn't pretending to be medicine — who reads the ingredients out of habit and would quite like the list to end quickly.
Proof points
Founded 2023; nationwide since September 2024 via Selfridges. More than 2,000 retail partnerships. Four flavours. Zero sugar, zero sweetener, zero artificial ingredients; ASA-compliant zero-calorie. £1.39–£1.69 per can. Cans without BPA liners. Backed by external investment.
Traction & credibility
From a three-flavour Selfridges debut to 2,000-plus stockists in under two years. In July 2026 the company launched the UK's first pickle sparkling water, sold through its direct allocation within weeks, and secured a six-month grocery exclusive with Ocado — earning selection among BeverageDaily's top launches of the summer and citation in FoodNavigator's analysis of the UK's pickle-beverage boom.
Spokespeople
Francesca Zampi
co-founder & CEO
The origin scar is a decade of comparison: ten years living in the US watching soft seltzers become mainstream culture, then coming home to a UK shelf offering sugar or worthiness and nothing in between. Her unfair advantage is the outsider's eye — she saw the gap because she'd lived inside its solution. The pivot: from noticing to founding, Selfridges to 2,000 stockists in two years.
Jesse Jenkins
co-founder & cook
The kitchen brain in a category built by marketers. His doctrine — flavour always starts with food — is why the range reads like a menu and why Pickle exists at all: it cuts richness, lifts a dish, makes you want more. The palate behind six-ingredient recipes where kombucha does the work sweeteners usually fake.
Talking points
The asset
YEW Drink launches UK's first pickle sparkling water, sells out direct and secures six-month Ocado exclusive
The story
On 1 July, YEW launched the UK's first pickle-flavoured sparkling water: briny dill and fresh cucumber over sparkling spring water, built from six ingredients including organic kombucha and lactic acid, at two calories a can. It debuted exclusively at Planet Organic and yewdrink.com, sold out on the brand's own store within weeks, and now heads to the mainstream on a six-month Ocado exclusive at £1.69 — arriving precisely as CNN crowns pickle the flavour of the moment and Kerry measures dill growing up to 900% across categories.
Why it matters
Every trend eventually meets its test: does anyone actually drink it, or just post it? A sell-out on real sales, followed by a national grocer betting six exclusive months on it, is the difference between a TikTok flavour and a fridge staple — and Britain's soft-drinks giants are watching a two-year-old startup run the experiment first.
Who does it impact
Curious drinkers get the boldest can in the chiller with nothing to fear on the label. Ocado gets the summer's most talked-about flavour exclusively. The functional-soda category gets an uncomfortable control group: maximum flavour, zero claims. And every chef watching gets proof that kitchen logic beats marketing logic in a can.
Proof points
Sold out on yewdrink.com within weeks of launch. Six ingredients; 2 kcal; 0.03g salt. Named among BeverageDaily's top summer 2026 launches; cited in FoodNavigator's UK pickle-beverage boom analysis. A six-month Ocado grocery exclusive secured, RRP £1.69. Sister flavours already through 2,000-plus stockists.
CTA
Try it at yewdrink.com/products/pickle
Key facts
- Product Name
- YEW Pickle Sparkling Water
- Launch Date
- 2026-07-01
- Key Ingredients
- Dill, fresh cucumber, organic kombucha, lactic acid
- Calories per can
- 2 kcal
- Salt content
- 0.03g
- RRP
- £1.69
- Exclusive Retailer
- Ocado (for six months)
- Initial Retailers
- Planet Organic, yewdrink.com
- Can size
- 330ml
- Availability
- UK
Images
YEW pickle 1
YEW pickle 2
YEW pickle 1
YEW pickle 4
Get in touch
Francesca Zampi
co-founder & CEO
Drop me a note and I'll reply by email.