Highland Spring Group (HSG) and Lucozade Ribena Suntory (LRS) announced the signing of a distribution agreement on 6 October to create a long-term commercial partnership between HSG’s bottled water business and LRS’s distribution business.
Independently owned, the Perthshire-based HSG business has a portfolio of bottled water brands including its flagship Highland Spring brand, the leading UK produced bottled water brand, along with Hydr8 and Speyside Glenlivet. LRS will distribute these brands within the ‘impulse’ and ‘out of home’ channels while HSG will continue to sell the brands directly in the retail sector, as well as manage its private label business.
HSG chief executive Les Montgomery commented: “The UK market is our heartland and we want to maximise the opportunity for consumers to choose our products wherever they are. LRS has an extensive distribution network and field resource. Outsourcing our ‘impulse’ and ‘out of home’ sales operation enables us to provide increased and focused support to our trade customers and to jointly develop plans that drive bottled water category sales.”
