Highland Spring Group (HSG) and Lucozade Ribena Suntory (LRS) have signed a distribution agreement creating a long-term commercial partnership between HSG’s bottled water business and LRS’s distribution business.
Under the agreement, LRS will distribute HSG’s portfolio of brands within the Impulse and Out of Home channels. These channels comprise Wholesale, Foodservice, On-trade and High Street and will support HSG’s ambitious growth targets, creating additional scale for the bottled water supplier’s existing business.
Perthshire based HSG has a portfolio of bottled water brands including its flagship Highland Spring brand, along with Hydr8 and Speyside Glenlivet, all of which fall under the terms of the agreement with LRS. HSG will continue to sell the brands directly in the Retail Sector as well as its Private Label business.
HSG Chief Executive, Les Montgomery commented: “LRS has an extensive distribution network and field resource. Partnering with them enables us to provide increased and focused support to our trade customers and to jointly develop plans that drive bottled water category sales.”
To support its growth ambitions, HSG has also recently confirmed plans to invest £20m at its Perthshire site, which will see bottling capacity increase by almost 50% over the next 12 months.
Peter Harding, Chief Operating Officer of LRS sees the agreement as a great opportunity: “This establishes LRS as a significant player in the water sector and opens up new distribution for HSG. We are delighted to be working in partnership with such an established brand.”
The distribution agreement is effective 30th November 2015.
