Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits has won five awards in the 2025 Just Drinks Excellence Awards, standing out in the Business Expansion, Environmental, Marketing, Safety, and Social categories.
The company won Business Expansion award for targeted acquisitions and seamless integrations that improved national coverage and speed-to-shelf. It earned the Environmental award for measurable sustainability gains, pairing artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled logistics with facility upgrades and piloting lower-emission delivery technologies. The Marketing award recognizes its transformation of a long-standing festival sponsorship into a results-driven platform with clear pre, during, and post-event activation that boosted digital reach and supplier brand value.
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
The Safety award reflects a field-first model linking governance, training, and technology to reduce risk across fleet and warehouses, with external recognition for ongoing improvement. The Social award acknowledges a scalable employee volunteer program and ambassador network that integrates supplier partners and advances youth alcohol education and hospitality pathways.
Building a truly programmable national footprint
Southern Glazer’s executed a disciplined expansion program that extended national coverage while maintaining local execution. The 2024 acquisition of substantially all assets of Horizon Beverage Group added Massachusetts and Rhode Island as the company’s 46th and 47th U.S. markets, operating in New England under the Southern Glazer’s Beverage Company banner. The agreement to acquire Anheuser-Busch’s owned New York City distribution operation is set to add scale in Manhattan, Queens, Staten Island, and the Bronx upon close, strengthening the company’s presence in strategically important on-premise, high-density urban markets.
Internationally, the 2023 acquisition of WEBB Banks—now Southern Glazer’s Travel Retail Sales & Export Division—demonstrated that scale can be paired with agility by preserving local leadership and overlaying enterprise systems. The integration accelerated speed-to-shelf, improved service reliability, and expanded cross-border and travel-retail capabilities, including a Foreign Trade Zone in Miami to reduce lead times and support product freshness. Overall, the company converted M&A into operational synergies—rather than mere territory expansion—resulting in better service reliability and faster execution for suppliers and chains, and enabling national program execution.
Cutting carbon in the last mile and the warehouse
Southern Glazer’s decarbonization program is measurable, multi-year, and embedded in daily operations. The company committed to reducing vehicle idle time by 25% over five years starting in 2022 and had achieved a 17.8% reduction by March 2024. AI-enabled routing and demand forecasting within a broader supply chain transformation have lowered the carbon intensity of fleet operations without sacrificing service levels. The company also piloted insulated electric vehicles retrofitted with electric refrigeration units to support temperature-controlled fine wine delivery with lower emissions and waste, signaling leadership in sustainable cold-chain logistics within the sector.
Facility efficiency upgrades complement fleet advances: LED lighting projects, HVAC improvements, and equipment overhauls have delivered cumulative savings of more than 10.9 million kWh and removed over 5,200 tons of CO2 at initial sites. Employee-led Green Teams—43 active across the U.S.—have advanced local recycling efforts and tree-planting initiatives, while an enterprise device recycling program has responsibly processed more than 41,000 IT assets since inception. Partnerships such as the Cork Collective and ecoSPIRITS extend circularity into packaging and on-premise ecosystems. Together, these actions constitute an integrated roadmap across fleet, facilities, and value chain partners that is producing measurable emissions reductions.
Turning a marquee festival into measurable marketing impact
Southern Glazer’s elevated its exclusive sponsorship of the Food Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival presented by Capital One (SOBEWFF®) into a structured, results-oriented social media activation with pre, during, and post-event content designed for platform-specific engagement. The 2025 campaign delivered 245,132 impressions and 93,371 video views across channels during the Festival weekend, with Instagram driving the majority of video views. In 2025—the 24th consecutive year of sponsorship—the company supported more than 105 curated events with over 10,000 cases, engaging approximately 65,000 attendees and 1,500 FIU students.
The coordinated content strategy maintained narrative control across owned and social channels and used the festival’s stage to spotlight priority supplier brands in formats valued by the trade. Storytelling emphasized purpose and education, reflecting the Festival’s benefit to Florida International University’s Chaplin School of Hospitality & Tourism Management, which has received more than $45 million to date from SOBEWFF® net proceeds.
Engineering risk out of fleet and facilities
Southern Glazer’s operates a field-first safety model that links governance, training, and technology to reduce operational risk. The Compliance Assurance Program uses data-driven audits and incident analyses to prioritize engineered controls, including comprehensive machine guarding assessments across large-scale conveyor systems and investments in fall protection. Driver risk is addressed through an integrated pipeline that includes entry-level driver training with certified instructors, fleet telematics and camera systems for coaching and compliance, and recognition programs that reinforce safe behavior.
Warehouses have been strengthened with engineered controls, autonomous material handling equipment, blue-light forklift systems, and an ergonomics program supported by certified athletic trainers. Safety learning is reinforced through AI-enabled microlearning pilots, weekly toolbox talks, and skills competitions such as truck and forklift rodeos. Business continuity and response capabilities are supported by a centralized Incident Command Center providing 24/7 monitoring.
Mobilizing employees and partners for community outcomes
Southern Glazer’s has institutionalized employee volunteerism through its VolunCheers program and a structured VolunCheers Ambassador network. The program includes more than 90 VolunCheers Ambassadors across 47 U.S. markets, plus the District of Columbia and Canada, who coordinate local participation and enterprise-wide campaigns. Since its launch in 2018, employees have created 4,419 volunteer events, logged 86,072 volunteer hours, and contributed $587,483 in donations through 2024, with most activity focused on community, social services, and health and wellness. The program integrates supplier partners—evident at the VolunCheers Unleashed conference—and maintains year-round momentum through nonprofit partnerships and regular programming.
The Youth Alcohol Awareness and Education initiative has reached 54,222 students across Florida, Texas, and New York, spanning 331 high schools and 79,660 hours of learning. In the 2024–2025 school year, assessments showed a rise from 62% pre-lesson to 89% post-lesson, a 27% knowledge increase; 92% of students reported the courses would inform future decisions, and educators reported a 94% positive rating. The SOBEWFF® partnership further converts sponsorship into community value, with proceeds to date exceeding $45 million for FIU’s Chaplin School, alongside hands-on experience for 1,500 students.
“Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits is greatly honored to receive the Just Drinks Excellence Awards across multiple categories. These accolades are a testament to the dedication and passion of our team members – the heart of our organization – and how together, we strive to make a lasting impact in the different areas of our business. From driving company growth, to fostering a safety-first work culture and even extending a helping hand to the communities we serve, each recognition reflects our collective efforts to make a positive influence not only across our operating markets but in the overall beverage industry.”
– Wayne E. Chaplin, President and Chief Executive Officer, Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits
Company Profile
Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits is the world’s preeminent distributor of beverage alcohol, building brands for moments that matter. The multi-generational, family-owned Company has operations in 47 U.S. markets and Canada, as well as brokerage operations through its Southern Glazer’s Travel Retail Sales & Export Division in the Caribbean, Central and South America. In 2025, Southern Glazer’s was recognized by Newsweek as one of America’s Greatest Workplaces for Diversity and America’s Greatest Workplaces for Women. Southern Glazer’s urges all retail customers and adult consumers to market, sell, serve, and enjoy its products responsibly. For more information visit www.southernglazers.com. Follow us on Facebook, X, and Instagram @sgwinespirits.
Links
