OGDEN, Utah — HydroJug is one of the most popular drink-wear brands on social media. If you scroll on TikTok you can find thousands of people using or talking about it, but what makes HydroJug so special? It could be its variety of colors, styles, and designs. But if you ask the company, their real heart is the people in Ogden, starting with the founding brothers, Hayden and Jake Wadsworth.
"My parents had subway franchises, and then my dad was a fireman and had a landscaping company, so we were always kind of involved in the family businesses," reflected Hayden on his upbringing that contributed to his entrepreneurial spirit.
"We were into fitness, we were in the gyms, and we were seeing what people were using and we just kind of saw opportunity," said Jake. "They were carrying milk jugs, they were single use, they leaked, they were hard to add supplements to."
In 2016, what Jake and Hayden believed to be a better solution to hydration was born, the original HydroJug. In the early days, Jake says they fulfilled orders out of their parents' garage. "I didn't really know what to expect when the first product came," remembered Jake. "It came in three pallets and I thought that was a lot."
Now HydroJug has two warehouses in Ogden, more products, about 100 employees, and fulfills around 80,000 orders a month. You can also find their products in some of the biggest retailers.
"I love seeing it out and about and you can say after all the hard work and everything that goes on behind the scenes you're getting a little bit of that payoff like, 'Oh I scored a touchdown or I made a bucket'," Hayden said.
Hayden remembers the humble times, but that's what makes their exponential growth feel even more special. In 2021, HydroJug was #33 on the Inc. 5000 List for its 9,032% growth over three years. So what's next for this local success story?
"We really want to expand the product catalog whether it's people that like to run, bike, drink coffee, whatever that is they can use a HydroJug product." Hayden said looking to the future.
But what the brothers really want to accomplish next is thanking Utah for being part of what makes HydroJug so special. "Utah just feels like a really big community and the business community is so supportive and the consumer community is so supportive and it's really cool to be a part of that because it's not like that everywhere," Hayden said.
