UK vodka firm Sapling Spirits is looking to raise more funds to support a possible entry into the US.
The business, which promotes its “climate positive” credentials, is hoping to attract £5-7m ($6.8-9.5m) from investors. So far, the company, set up in 2018 and with a presence in the UK and continental Europe, has raised around £4m.
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Ivo Devereux said he and fellow co-founder Ed Faulkner have sourced potential production partners, as well as a possible glass manufacturer and wheat suppliers.
“We’ve got a shortlist of about six distillers. We’re planning to go out next month or the month after to go meet with them. We found a glass manufacturer and suppliers that can produce organic wheat. That’s taken us about seven months to get to that stage and we’re hoping in the next couple of months we can really quickly get things over the line for a February launch next year,” Devereux told Just Drinks.
The company, which has held early discussions with US distribution giant Southern Glazer’s, has yet to finalise which states it will target, although Florida and New York are being considered.
“We think the demographic [in Florida] would be very well suited to Sapling in terms of our liquid and our sustainability credentials,” Devereux said. “New York because it’s a state that you kind of have to win in. If you don’t, then you’re kind of seen as a brand that hasn’t really made the States work.”
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By GlobalDataOutside the UK, Sapling Spirits has earmarked the US, the Netherlands and Italy as its three principal overseas markets. The London-based company, which already sells in Italy, entered the Netherlands in April.
“From a strategic perspective – and I guess a cultural perspective as well – if we can prove the brand works in a southern European market, a northern European market and the US and we invest properly in them, you can think laterally and say ‘Well, if it works in Netherlands, we can make it work in Germany and the Nordic countries [and] if it works in Italy, we can make it work in Spain, Greece,’” Faulkner said.
“We think that from creating brand value, focusing on those markets, hiring great people in-market and building the brand properly is better than sending pallets to 20 distributors in 20 different countries and hoping that they manage to shift it somehow.”
Sapling Spirits is targeting sales of 24,000 nine-litre cases this year, which Devereux said would equate to around £4.5m in revenue.
In the UK, the company first focused on “specialist” retailers and “high-end” on-trade accounts. Two years ago, Sapling Spirits launched its vodka on online grocer Ocado and it now counts Waitrose as another retail customer. Last year, the business secured a contract with pub group Young’s.
“We started conversations with [UK pub groups] Mitchells & Butlers, Fuller’s. The same goes with retail,” Devereux said. “Our first step out, as it were, of specialist retail from the Fortnum & Masons and Selfridges was to go to Waitrose where we felt like the demographic, the price point, was most aligned. We now feel confident, based on the way it’s gone with Waitrose and the relationship we’ve got there, that we can take that next step. Sainsbury’s next really is kind of where we’re looking at, we’re in conversations with.”
