IBP NEWS
Hofmeister Secures
Distribution Deal
Hofmeister Brewing Co. has a new UK
distributor in the wake of Keystone
Brewing Group issuing a notice to
appoint administrators.

Keystone, which had been handling
Hofmeister’s sales and distribution in
the UK, filed the notice last November.

Hofmeister had been among
the brands Keystone distributed in
its home market. The two companies
announced their tie-up last March
but Hofmeister said on Friday
(9 January) it is now working with
Kingfisher Drinks.

“We refused to let our momentum
be stalled by the challenges of a
third-party distributor. We are back in
the driving seat as a fully independent
business and we have selected
Kingfisher Drinks to provide the scale
and operational excellence needed
to ensure every pint arrives fresh and
on time,” Hofmeister CEO Spencer
Chambers, who alongside Richard
Longhurst owns a majority of the
business, said.

Hofmeister was relaunched in
2016 after Chambers and Longhurst
acquired the brand from Heineken.

PepsiCo UK Invests £3.6m to Install
Roof-Mounted Solar Power System
UK Organic Food, Drink Sales Rose
Last Year but Growth Slows
PepsiCo UK has announced a multi-million-pound investment
in a new solar power project at its Southern Region
Distribution Centre (SRDC) in Leicester.

Sales of organic food and drinks in the UK increased for a
fourteenth straight year in 2025 but growth slowed from the
prior 12 months.

Working together with energy infrastructure specialist Ineco
Energy, the project will see solar panels installed across 30,000
square metres of roof space – equivalent to around four football
pitches. Once complete, the panels are expected to generate
100% of the energy needed to power the logistics centre over the
course of a year, reducing demand on the national electricity grid.

The 3.56 MWp solar power system is expected to generate
around 2.84 GWh of renewable electricity each year – enough
to power approximately 1000 UK homes for a year. Any surplus
electricity will go towards powering the Walkers crisps
manufacturing plant, one of the world’s largest crisp factories,
located just next door to the distribution centre.

The solar project is the latest in a series of sustainability
investments across PepsiCo’s UK sites. In recent years,
PepsiCo has switched to electric ovens at its site in Leicester,
installed more efficient machinery on its manufacturing line in
Coventry, and invested in new, more efficient fryers at its Brigg
site, the home of Pipers crisps. Together, these three initiatives
have reduced PepsiCo’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by
around 2,400 tonnes a year.

The £3.6m solar panel installation follows a £14m investment
to upgrade the distribution centre in 2021. The distribution centre
plays a key part in PepsiCo’s UK supply chain, employing 240
people and distributing products made at the company’s six
factories across the country. This marked one of the biggest
UK logistics investments in PepsiCo’s history and saw state of
the art equipment and technology introduced across the site.

Construction of the solar power system is already
underway, with installation expected to be by completed by
September 2026.

Total sales reached £3.86bn, rising 4.2% compared to the
7.4% pace in 2024, according to a report from UK body Soil
Association Certification.

Figures show growth has been inconsistent in recent
years, accelerating in 2024 from 2% in 2023 and 1.6% in 2022.

However, those rates cooled from 5.2% and 12.6% in 2021 and
2020, respectively.

Nevertheless, sales values of organic food and drinks have
almost doubled in the past decade from £1.95bn in 2015,
according to figures compiled by the Soil Association Certification.

Growth in volumes per unit sold also eased last year for
both organic and non-organic food and beverage products,
coming in at 1.2% and 0.3%, respectively.

“Supermarkets have taken note of consumer demand for
healthy, high-quality nutrient-rich food, and have reacted with
rebrands and expansions to their organic ranges, along with
more price promotions and loyalty discounts,” said Alex Cullen,
the Soil Association Certification’s Commercial Director.

Citing data from Worldpanel by Numerator, he added, “83%
of households are buying organic and the frequency of organic
purchases has increased in supermarkets, with shoppers on
average buying organic once every three weeks.”
By category, the Soil Association Certification said dairy,
ambient products, fresh goods, meat, fish and poultry are the
most popular organic purchases at the supermarket level.

Beers, wines and spirits also featured highly, with unit
volumes growing 5% last year, outpacing the 2.3% for fresh
produce and 2.9% for meat, fish and poultry.

Frozen led the way with volume growth of 16.3% followed
by 5.3% for dairy. Baby food and drinks suffered, falling 10.8%.

14 INTERNATIONAL BOTTLER & PACKER | APRIL 2026



NEWS
Diageo cannot “Rely on
Economic Temperature to be
Successful,” says CEO.

Diageo will focus on building a portfolio
that can be more resilient to economic
pressures, Sir Dave Lewis has said.

As Diageo reported a set of half-year
results that included lower organic
sales, a cut to its full-year guidance and
changes to its dividend, the company
said it is developing a new strategy
which will be revealed to the market in
the third quarter of 2026.

Speaking to analysts, CEO, Sir Dave
Lewis, said, “The way we’ll think about
strategy is how do we build out a portfolio
that actually reflects and is effective in
the prevailing economic conditions?
“We can make some calls about how
that might change into the future but I
don’t want the Diageo business to be
something that has to rely on the
economic temperature in order to be
successful. That’s going to be the change
in the strategy you see going forward.”
In the six months to the end of
December, Diageo’s net sales fell 4%
to $10.46bn or by 2.8% organically.

Operating profit dropped 1.2% to
$3.12bn on a reported basis and, before
exceptional items, was also down 2.8%.

Diageo now expects its annual
organic net sales to be down 2-3%
compared to its earlier ‘flat to slightly
down’ forecast. Organic operating profit
is also now expected to be ‘flat to up low-
single-digit’, versus the prior forecast
for low to mid-single-digit growth.

Sazerac Launches Baby Shots in UK
Sazerac has launched Baby Shots,
a range of pre-mixed cocktail-
flavoured shots, in the UK.

The shots are initially available on
Amazon, ahead of a wider national
rollout in at unnamed convenience
retailers later this year.

Baby Shots is built around British
pre-drinks culture and three of the UK’s
most-loved cocktail flavours, making
the UK the natural home for launch.

Scotch Export Volumes Slide
on US Tariffs
US tariffs affected Scotch whisky
exports last year, with data released
showing global shipments down 4%.

According to SWA the value of exports
dipped 0.6% but fell 4.3% in volume terms.

Scotch exports were valued at £5.36bn,
with the equivalent of 1.3bn bottles sold.

Volumes to the US dropped more than 9%,
hit by US tariffs on UK exports. The value
of sales to the US decreased 4% to £933m.

SWA Chief Executive, Mark Kent, said,
“The international trading environment
VISIT OUR WEBSITE | www.binstedgroup.com
The company describes the drinks,
which are produced in the US, as an
‘easy-drinking alternative’ to traditional
shots, claiming it offers no ‘shot-burn’.

The 15% abv shots are available
in three flavours – Pornstar Martini,
Strawberry Daiquiri and Mojito.

They will be sold in 50ml and
700ml formats, with suggested retail
prices of £10.99 for a full-sized bottle
and 99p for the mini variant.

continues to be challenging for Scotch
whisky producers, with tariffs and
geo-political tension causing significant
turbulence in some key markets.”
Exports to France – the second-
largest market for Scotch in value
and volume terms – declined on both
metrics. The value of sales to France
fell 3.6% while volumes slid 14%.

Sales to India rose 15% to £286m
on the back on a 15% rise in volumes.

Measured in volumes, India is the
largest market for Scotch, with sales
standing at 220 million 70cl bottles last
year, the SWA data showed.

Sharp’s Brewery to Close
Molson Coors Beverage Co has
set out plans to shut its Sharp’s
Brewery in Cornwall.

The move was announced as part of
broader changes to the group’s UK
and Ireland business, which could
result in around 200 redundancies
once talks are completed.

In a statement Molson Coors
said it was proposing to close
Sharp’s Brewery, which produces
brands like Doom Bar and Offshore
Pilsner, by the end of this year.

The proposal, which also
includes shutting a site in Cardiff,
looks ‘to unlock efficiencies and
cost-savings to fuel its long-term
growth’, the group said.

Molson Coors acquired Sharp’s
Brewery in Rock, Cornwall in 2011
for £20m (then $32.4m).

Simon Kerry, Managing Director
for Molson Coors’ operations in the
UK and Ireland, said, “The proposed
closure of Sharp’s Brewery has
not been an easy decision for us
to make. It has been a significant
part of our UK business for 15
years, with an exceptional and
committed team who take such
huge pride in their craft.

“We have invested significantly
in the site and the Sharp’s brands
over that time and have taken
every step we can to try and
avoid this outcome. However,
the site is no longer financially
sustainable as part of our
national production network.”
In 2015, Molson Coors confirmed
it had moved the brewing of the
bottled edition of Cornish beer
Doom Bar to its brewery in Burton.

Kerry added, “As a brewer with
more than 200 years of experience,
we understand that long-term
success requires decisive action in
response to market evolution.”
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