UK cocktail ingredient firm Funkin has said it will invest US$500,000 in its expansion in the US.

This morning (12 March), the company announced plans to expand its business in the US with the creation of a new division in the country and the expansion of its UK team.

The fruit-purée-for-cocktails producer said that the move is being made in response to the growing demand for cocktails in the US.

“We’re distributed now by Glazers and Southern Wines and Spirits, the biggest distributors in the US,” chief executive Andrew King told just-drinks today. “Having that route to market established and having started to build some traction in the US, we’re now looking at building mixology programmes, taking part in extensive training so that the message of Funkins is clearly understood and people know how to use [our products].”

King said the firm is currently developing a ‘single serve cocktail mixes’ programme with the Hyatt hotel chain in the US and will look to build similar case studies across the country in a bid to “take the business to the next level”.

“From a distribution perspective, we have a partner in the US and that won’t change, but we’re looking to use our UK and European model where we’ve taken a number of spirit brands across a number of different manufacturers and developed drinks programmes with them,” King said.

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“In the UK, we’re working with Bacardi and Bombay Sapphire and in the US we’re already working with a number of Beam (Global Spirits & Wine) brands and other spirits brands, some are work in progress at the moment, so there are programmes we are looking to build,” he added.

King said the firm will make a $500,000 investment in the US this year, with plans to expand further, into the BRIC economies, at a later date.

“We are extended now into 20 different countries so we currently are working across a programme in Australia, Greece, Portugal, Spain, Poland and Scandanavia,” he said. “We have a major programme in France at the moment. And we are also looking at how we can access the BRIC economies.

We have relatively developed plans, and in some we are still at stage one discussions. We will first of all look at India, but then we will see if we can access Russia,” King said.

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