This NZ-born top-10 premium mixer brand has collapsed. How are its competitors fairing?

New Zealand’s leading premium mixer brand, East Imperial, has entered liquidation after halting share trading on 15 April. The company, which is listed to the London Stock Market, reportedly owes more than AUD $20 million in debt, and has blamed its failure on higher costs of operation. 

According to Drinks International's 2024 Brands Report, East Imperial is among the top-10 bestselling mixer brands and top-8 trending mixer brands of today. Despite its strong global present, East Imperial has struggled to compete within Australia even after experimenting with a number of different importers including Neat Spirits, Think Spirits, Swift + Moore, and Metcash. 

In January this year, East Imperial successfully raised over $600,000 via the issuing of new shares to help fund the company’s US base and distribution network. About a month later, it revealed that its net revenue had taken a major hit in Financial Year 2023, decreasing from roughly AUD $6.1 million to $4.5 million.

In this statement, East Imperial said that, even though it was in “ongoing discussions with potential debt funders to provide additional working capital to help support ongoing expansion,” it expected “that cashflow breakeven will be achieved in Q4 2024.”

CEO and Executive Chairman Anthony Burt said, “East Imperial made significant operational improvements and commercial advances during 2023 despite the challenging operational issues earlier in the year. We know that we must drive sales, margin enhancement and cash generation as we target customers in our chosen markets who demand quality and a sense of individuality.” 

Last week, it announced to the London Stock Market that it has appointed liquidators and cancelled its stock market listing after being informed that “INL Investment Limited has proceeded to appoint a liquidator to the Company's New Zealand subsidiary.

“The Board has looked at a number of possible routes to seek repayment for creditors and potentially retain value to shareholders. These discussions have been ongoing to the present date,” read its announcement to the London Stock Market.

Despite East Imperial’s struggle, global and Australian leader of the premium mixer market Fever-Tree reported “good underlying sales momentum resulted in revenue growth of 6% despite macroeconomic headwinds” in its Financial Year 2023 results.

"2023 was a year when the Fever-Tree brand once again grew in breadth and depth, with market share gains across the globe,” said Tim Warrillow, Co-Founder and global CEO.

“Taken alongside softening inflationary pressures, the operational efficiencies we are delivering means I am confident that we are entering 2024 in a very strong position from an operational perspective and have an excellent platform for strong profitable growth going forward."

2023 also saw Fever-Tree establish an Australia company team. 

“I'm very proud of the growth and impact of Fever-Tree over the last few years in Australia,” Managing Director of Australia Andy Gaunt told Drinks Trade at the start of this year.

“Despite growing competition in the mixer category, Fever-Tree is in double-digit growth and is the clear No. 1 Premium mixer brand in Australia. We hold 82% share of the premium mixer market.

“Our YTD performance highlights include +12% Total RSV growth, +26% RSV growth in Coles and an extraordinary +73% RSV growth in our Sodas. With that, we are proud to announce we currently hold a 37% share of the Tonic category and are on track to be No. 1 by the end of Q4.”