Lemonaid Beverages is a social enterprise and beverage company founded in 2008 in Hamburg, Germany, with a UK subsidiary established in 2014. The company produces organic soft drinks under the brands Lemonaid and ChariTea, using Fairtrade-certified ingredients sourced from small farming cooperatives around the world.
5p from every bottle sold enables the Lemonaid & ChariTea Foundation, which supports social and entrepreneurial projects in the growing regions, which has raised over €12 million to date.
Julian Warowioff is the Managing Director of Lemonaid, Oliver Bentley sat down with him to share his candid views on how AI is shaping the FMCG sector, the ethical boundaries it must respect, and how challenger brands can harness its potential without losing their soul.
OB: Julian, AI adoption is increasing rapidly across every industry. To what extent are you using AI and automation technology at the moment?
JW: We’re using AI to varying degrees across different parts of the organisation. We don’t have a formal AI policy yet, but we actively encourage initiatives within individual departments. We talk about them openly, share learnings as a team, and adapt successful approaches across the business.
At some point, I’d like us to have a dedicated role focused on AI – someone who can oversee these initiatives, scale them up, and ensure we’re capturing efficiencies consistently across the organisation. But we’re not quite there yet.
OB: Can you tell me more about some of these initiatives and where AI is working well?
JW: We’re using various productivity tools. For example, AI helps structure day-to-day meeting preparation, and our marketing team uses it extensively for copywriting and campaign ideation.
Since our head office is in Germany, English isn’t our first language. AI has been a huge help in refining tone of voice across different markets – something that used to be a real friction point. It’s also starting to support our recruitment process by automating some basic steps and improving information flow.
OB: How do you see AI helping smaller, mission-driven FMCG brands compete with global giants?
JW: We’ve grown quickly – we’re now about 130 people – and as you get larger, communication becomes harder. Meetings multiply, but documentation doesn’t always keep up. AI helps us summarise discussions, extract action points, and stay agile. It means we don’t all have to attend every meeting, yet we still stay aligned.
Unlike the big players, we don’t have massive budgets for research or consumer insight departments. So, we use AI creatively to fill those gaps – to test assumptions, run small surveys, or gather early market signals. It helps us make faster, more informed decisions, spot opportunities, and access data that would otherwise be out of reach.
AI has really shortened the time from idea to execution. It makes us more responsive and, I think, more daring creatively – which gives us an edge against bigger, slower competitors.
OB: It’s important that the information AI produces is validated. How do you sense-check what you get from these tools?
JW: We use ChatGPT quite a lot, but we never take anything at face value. Even though the accuracy of AI models has improved significantly, we treat their output as one data point among many. We always cross-check it against other sources and make sure a human reviews the final decision. That’s non-negotiable for us.
OB: You’ve built a brand rooted in social impact. How do you see AI aligning, or conflicting, with ethical business models in FMCG?
JW: Lemonaid is an ethics-first business, and AI can fit within that framework – but it doesn’t create values for you. It can make you more efficient, but it can’t make you more ethical. That’s important at a time when consumers increasingly struggle to tell truth from spin.
For us, it’s essential that our claims are backed up by independent third-party certifications like Fairtrade or Organic. AI can help us communicate those standards more clearly, but it can’t replace the actual auditing or verification behind them. I don’t believe AI will ever replace human supply chain oversight.
OB: In your experience, how open are retailers and distributors to AI-driven insights from challenger brands?
JW: We’re just preparing for our first major retailer listing, and to be honest, AI didn’t play a big part in securing it. What made the difference was authenticity – the fit between the product, the brand, and the people behind it. Ultimately, it came down to real relationships and shared values, not clever data insights.
There’s always a risk for small brands to over-rely on data that paints them in a flattering light, which the retailer might not share. Retailers have their own, often more accurate, customer insights. It’s best to use AI for clarity and storytelling – not as a replacement for genuine partnership.
OB: What does the future look like for ethical FMCG brands in an AI-powered world?
JW: AI supports us in many ways, but it doesn’t replace human connection – and I’m a strong believer that brands are experienced and remembered through moments, not algorithms.
It’s the drink you share with friends in a café, or at a music festival – those experiences stick. That’s why we’re doubling down on live events and in-person tastings, rather than shifting our entire marketing budget towards automated digital campaigns.
AI can enhance efficiency, but authenticity still happens offline.
OB: How useful can AI be in product innovation?
JW: We’re in consumer goods, so our products are tangible – flavour, texture, experience. Technology isn’t at the point where you can outsource product development for a drink to software.
What it can do is give us faster, richer feedback loops. We’re in constant dialogue with customers, baristas, and retailers through digital platforms, which means we can co-create in near real time.
For example, customers told us they missed that classic ‘homemade orangeade’ taste from decades ago – so we’re bringing it back. That came from real human feedback, not an algorithm, but technology helped us collect and interpret that feedback far more efficiently.
Ten years ago, launching a D2C channel alongside B2B would have been a huge undertaking. Now, it’s relatively easy – and that accessibility has really levelled the playing field for small, mission-driven brands like ours.
OB: And, finally, how would you encourage other businesses to embrace AI based on your experience?
JW: At the moment, AI use tends to be quite individual – people experiment on their own, often without others knowing what’s possible. I’d love to see more of a learning culture around it: sharing what works, where the risks are, and what to avoid.
We have to stay curious but also cautious. AI is very good at guessing, but it doesn’t know everything. The biggest early benefit is definitely efficiency – automating repetitive, low-value tasks and freeing people up for more creative work.
The key is to make sure whole departments, not just individuals, benefit from these tools. That’s how you scale the impact. I think we’re only at the very beginning of that journey.