Ashland Hard Seltzer is on pace to double its volume in 2022, with expectations to exceed 500,000 cases (around 36,300 barrels).
Ashland, the lead brand in founder Josh Landan’s Wings & Arrow house of brands portfolio, has increased volume more than +65% year-to-date through July, with July 2022 sales up +158% compared to July 2021. In its home market of San Diego, Ashland is the fourth best-selling hard seltzer brand, posting the second highest growth in the seltzer segment, “outselling Bud Light [Seltzer], Vizzy, Corona [Hard Seltzer], and Michelob Ultra [Organic Seltzer],” the company shared.
Landan credited the company’s focus on the Southern California market for the growth, as well as building out the company’s sales force to service chains and independent retailers.
“Just in the chains, I think we’re up +70% to +80%, and that is just having product,” he told Brewbound. “If you’re lucky enough to have the kind of brand pull that we do, you gotta be ready to produce a lot of alcohol. It’s hard to keep up with demand, especially right out of the gate.”
Landan said the company finally has the capital to build its inventory and meet demand. The majority of Ashland’s out is contract produced by Ninkasi Brewing in Eugene, Oregon, with additional production at Mission Brewery in San Diego and SLO Brew in San Luis Obispo.
“People are drinking hard seltzer,” he said. “They just might not be gravitating toward some of the other brands. As you can see, we’ve had pretty phenomenal growth.
“White Claw and Truly are still massive and they’re still selling insane amounts of product,” he continued. “I guess when you’re not growing like they were, it’s viewed as a negative, but I think in any other circumstance, in any other category, if you had brands in it that were that big, people would be pretty excited about what it was doing.”
Ashland has bucked the overall hard seltzer segment’s negative trends. Year-to-date through August 7, off-premise hard seltzer sales have declined -9.6%, to $2.67 billion, with volume -13.9%, according to market research firm IRI. The segment’s dollar share of the beer category has also declined -0.72 points, to 7.71%.
To help continue to fuel its production pipeline and get more sales reps on the street, Wings & Arrow is in the midst of its second capital raise, with the company looking to raise $10-15 million, Landan said.
“We’re almost 75% of the way there already,” he said of the month-old raise. Last year, the company raised $12 million.
Landan noted that over the last couple of years, the conversations with investors have shifted from “hyperspeed growth” during the COVID-19 pandemic, to profitability as the economy has shifted. For Landan, profitability is his “sole focus” heading into 2023, a goal he expects to achieve in the first quarter of 2023.
Landan, who founded Saint Archer in 2013 and sold it to Molson Coors in 2015, launched Ashland in 2020 and has since expanded the business under the Wings & Arrow banner to include spirits-based, ready-to-drink canned cocktails under the Villager name and a hard lemonade brand called Mucho Aloha. Landan expects the Wings & Arrow portfolio to reach nearly $12 million in sales this year, with the majority of that business concentrated in Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties, and “a little bit of Arizona” and NorCal “sprinkled in.”
In the on-premise channel, Ashland has captured 600 draft handles in Southern California, with its Rainbow Sherbet flavor leading the way, Landan said.
“Coming from Saint Archer and coming from beer, where brands are built in the bars, that would be a huge number for a craft beer brand in SoCal,” he said. “It’s 10% of our business, which is pretty substantial for a hard seltzer.”
Unique flavor combos and nostalgic flavors have been the wheelhouse for Ashland. The brand has found success with Bomb Pop, Rainbow Sherbert, Strawberry Shortcake, Orange Creamsicle and Lemon, with the latter four flavors sold in an Ice Cream variety pack. Landan said the ice cream flavors followed a Bomb Pop-inspired collaboration release with Los Angeles Dodger Cody Bellinger, who is also an investor in Ashland.
“It kind of went nuts,” he said.
Ashland’s partnership with Stone Distributing, which acquired the seltzer brand’s rights in late 2021 from Scout Distribution, has helped build those chain sales in Southern California as well as its presence in the Los Angeles market, Landan said.
Earlier this year, Ashland launched its second state, Arizona, with Anheuser-Busch (A-B) house Hensley Beverage. According to Landan, Ashland has pieced together a network of A-B wholesalers, with the exception of Stone Distributing in Southern California.
Among the priorities for Ashland moving forward will be building distribution north of San Diego in Orange County, Los Angeles and the Bay Area, where the company’s distribution is less than 20%.
“We’re nowhere near where we need to be, so we’ve got a long way to go,” he said. “I’d rather grow the business and be profitable than spread ourselves too thin and just get some cases here or there from maybe the western states. I’d rather have some patience and focus. If you’d have asked me to describe myself 10 years ago, I’d never have said patience and focus.”
In 2023, the aim for Wings & Arrow will be on building distribution in its existing footprint while launching new Ashland flavors once the calendar flips.
Also in 2023, Wings & Arrow will look to grow Villager, Mucho Aloha and a new hard iced tea brand Voyager. Landan expects Mucho Aloha and Voyage to remain grounded in Southern California, while Villager will be in the full Ashland footprint in California and Arizona.
The Mucho Aloha Hard Lemonade brand has sold 3,000 cases in San Diego since launching three weeks ago and has gained 50 draft handles between San Diego and Orange County, Landan said.
Within its two state footprint, Landan has set a goal of reaching more than 1 million cases in 2023 across the Wings & Arrow portfolio. Piecing together a house of brands has been the “hardest thing I’ve ever done,” Landan said. It’s also led him to be the happiest he’s been since starting Saint Archer with Jeff Hansson, the owner of Scout Distribution.
“I finally feel like that again,” Landan said. “That’s what I’ve been looking for since I left there to be honest with you. I’ve just been looking for that feeling again and I haven’t found it until now.”