Award-winning, international spirits company, Quintessential Brands Group, has appointed two highly experienced, drinks retail experts to its UK management team as it looks to build ever-closer, collaborative relationships with customers in the grocery channel.
Liz Peck joins Quintessential Brands UK as Business Unit Director – Grocery. Most recently Sales Director for Fuller’s Brewery, where she led all sales channels, Peck has worked extensively within commercial roles in the FMCG sector over the past 20 years. At Quintessential Brands UK, Peck is responsible for leading the sales team looking after key customers in the grocery channel, ensuring the company brings a more proactive and customer-centric approach to help customers win in the spirits aisle.
Neil Anderson, who departed Kingsland Drinks last year after five years as Marketing Director and was previously Global Brand Controller at Accolade Wines, joins as Retail Brand Marketing Director, focusing on the company’s ‘Spirit Solutions’ business, specifically on continuing to grow the company’s impressive retail brand and private label business.
Quintessential Brands Group has grown rapidly since it was established in 2011, enjoying notable success in the UK, where it is now the no.2 spirits provider to the UK Off-Trade, the leading gin producer in the UK grocery channel, and the reigning International Spirits Challenge Gin Distiller of the Year, an accolade the company has won four times in the last five years.
The expansion of the UK management team is indicative of the company’s ambitions in the UK as Lousada explains; “In the eight years since Quintessential Brands was established, the company has quietly built a reputation within the trade as a provider of quality spirits, with an enviable portfolio of premium brands and unrivalled gin distilling heritage dating back to 1761. We have succeeded to date in helping many customers win in the spirits aisle with innovative NPD that has captured the imagination of shoppers, particularly within the gin category; the challenge now is to maintain that consumer interest and keep them browsing the spirits aisle.
“We are now at a pivotal time for our business, as we look to build on the success we’ve had in the UK and ensure we are viewed by customers as their indispensable spirits partner, across all channels. With Liz and Neil’s vast experience, I have no doubt that our relationships with our grocery customers will go from strength to strength in the years ahead.”
Peck and Anderson join the UK leadership team, led by former Carlsberg UK CEO and Accolade Wines General Manager for Europe, James Lousada, working alongside Business Unit Director for On-Trade and Wholesale, Cheryl Gordon, and Premium Brands Marketing Director, Russell Kirkham.
Quintessential Brands’ portfolio of premium brands includes flagship gin brand, Greenall’s, which has enjoyed great success in recent months; Greenall’s Wild Berry Pink Gin was the big winner in flavoured gin this festive season, growing at 40%, well ahead of the flavoured gin category as a whole, which grew by 15%. The brand successfully launched Greenall’s Blueberry Gin last year and invested in an ATL campaign which communicated its status as the only major gin brand to contain zero sugar in its flavoured gins, a campaign which was well-received by consumers.
Quintessential Brands has also enjoyed particularly strong success with its ‘Spirit Solutions’ business in the UK in recent years, winning and retaining private label and own label contracts with some of the UK’s leading multiple grocers. Quintessential Brands Spirit Solutions also provides production and bottling services to a wide range of trade customers, servicing them through the company’s world-class production sites in the UK, Ireland and France.
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ABOUT QUINTESSENTIAL BRANDS
Quintessential Brands owns an award-winning portfolio of world-class spirit brands, which is powered by a strong entrepreneurial vision and passion for innovation, backed by centuries of handcrafted distilling expertise.
Quintessential Brands Group was established in 2011 with the acquisition of G&J Distillers, the UK’s foremost gin distillery, which evolved from Thomas Dakin’s original 1761 operation and now produces an unrivalled quality gin selection. In Ireland, Dublin Liberties Distillery is our home of modern Irish whiskeys and First Ireland Spirits in Abbeyleix crafts award-winning Irish creams. Our French hub, L&L France, creates fine French fruit liqueurs, cognacs, brandies and vodka.
For more information, please contact the communications team at Quintessential Brands by e-mail: [email protected]
