In July this year, Australian Liquor Marketers (ALM) acquired ownership of Kollaras & Co’s portfolio of award-winning owned and exclusive (O&E) brands. Since then, ALM has been working to build a team dedicated exclusively to growing these brands and making them “sing and perform in the market”.
Murray Riemann, General Manager – Owned & Exclusive Brands at ALM, told National Liquor News that the key focus for the O&E portfolio is to deliver quality, value, and margin to Independent Brands Australia (IBA) retailers.
“Our strategy is to deliver independent retailers an O&E range that attracts and delights shoppers with consistent quality products that provide excellent value for money and enables a superior return for the retailer – and that lines up with our mantra of successful independents.
“So, it’s really important that those three concepts of quality, value and margin come across in everything that we do.”
Georgia Kollaras has joined ALM as Senior Marketing Manager for the O&E portfolio. James Somerset is the new Portfolio Manager, and Nevil Shah is the new Sourcing and Compliance Manager. These three, along with Riemann are dedicated exclusively to growing the O&E brands and are currently undergoing a strategic review to, “focus on the ones which matter and make them bigger and make them better for consumers, retailers and ourselves,” says Riemann.
Benefits to retailers
“Our O&E products represent exceptionally good quality for the shopper and the consistency of that quality remains over time.
“They represent excellent value for the shopper in terms of price point for the quality of the product that they’re buying and really importantly for us as a wholesaler and the owner of IBA network, they provide the retailers with a superior margin return compared to other products.
“Consumers are seeking quality, value and consistency. They will try new products if they meet their wants, desires, and requirements. So, we are all about making sure that our current portfolio delivers quality and value, but we’re also preparing the future portfolio to encompass new products and range extensions.
“We are seeing interest and demand in the liquor market for such attributes as organic, low alcohol and even zero alcohol, and as we align our portfolio, we will explore those attributes where it makes sense to do so. We also don’t have ciders or RTD in the portfolio at the moment, but they are certainly on the radar.”
ALM’s strategic review of the O&E portfolio will be complete this month and the go-to-market strategy will be based on the outcomes of that review. But with a strong team in place, and a solid foundation of award-winning brands under their belt, the O&E team is confident that they will be able to meet their goal of delivering quality, value and margin to IBA’s network of successful independents.