The relaunch of Brothers Cider has got off to a stuttering start, with sales at the company behind the brand declining by 6% in 2024.
The Somerset-based cider brand comprehensively overhauled its branding and product offer in February 2024, shifting focus from sweet flavours to more sessionable ciders free from artificial flavours.
The revamp was backed by a £4m campaign comprising TV, OOH and festival activations.
However, the investment has so far failed to bear fruit.
Turnover at Brothers Drinks Company, which also produces the Babycham and Compton Orchard brands, fell from £97.9m in 2023 to £92.2m last year, newly filed accounts at Companies House showed.
Emma Vanderplank, marketing controller at Brothers Drinks Company, admitted the relaunch of Brothers Cider had taken time “to fully come on stream and bed in”.
She said: “2024 was a year of change for Brothers Cider on a scale that the brand had never before experienced. The major relaunch was an all-new approach with new liquids, new abvs, new packaging, new flavours and a new communication strategy.
“With new listings, new flavours and the changeover from bottles to cans, 2024 was always going to be a year of transition.”
Flooding and inflation hit profits
Operating profits, meanwhile, more than halved to £2.4m after a large increase in distribution costs and a modest increase in administrative expenses.
Brothers Drinks swung from a profit before tax of £5.2m in 2023 to a £400k loss last year as a result.
It had been “a challenging year” with “ongoing global unrest” and inflationary pressures “putting pressure on supply chains affecting all areas of the business”, Brothers Cider director Iain Glen said.
“This was compounded further by a significant local flood in early January, which impacted a production line and retail division, requiring a material insurance claim and significant repair work,” Glen noted.
However, Brothers Drinks had successively grown production volumes through an uplift in contract packaging, enabling it to invest in its owned brands and in solar panels to power one of its production lines, Glen said.
“Looking forward, efforts will continue to focus on the growth of our contract packing operation through optimising production efficiencies and capital investment in our manufacturing facilities,” he added.
Evolving strategy
Since the turn of the year, Brothers Cider had further evolved its strategy with the addition of two new 3.4% abv fruit ciders, and was now “outperforming its fruit cider competitors”, Vanderplank said, citing Wordpanel data.
“The brand is growing penetration at a level ahead of all competitors, most of whom are experiencing declines, and also increasing both purchase frequency and volume per purchase,” she said. “It is resonating more than ever with shoppers and successfully gaining traction amongst fruit cider buyers.
“Our change initiative is on the right track, as evidenced by the endorsement of being named Drinks Brand of the Year at The Grocer Gold Awards in July.”
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