Leading adult non-alc (NA) retailer Boisson is shuttering its retail outlets and “restructuring,” according to the founder of one NA brand that was informed of the news by a former Boisson employee.
After rumors surfaced last week that Boisson had laid off employees, the NA industry has been left scrambling for answers about the future of the retailer in the absence of any official statement. Ila Byrne, founder of agave based NA cocktail Parch, was tipped off last week by two industry contacts, an employee of a distributor and a founder of a spirit brand, “flagging that something was going on,” at Boisson she said.
One contact warned Byrne that she should get her products out of stores before Monday, noting the company’s 30% off sale as part of a “Spring Cleaning” promotion through the weekend, with all sales final. A member of the Parch team also went by one of the Los Angeles Boisson outlets over the weekend to reportedly find the store closed and emptied out.
Byrne then reached out to a former Boisson employee, who had left the company two weeks ago, that confirmed the closing of the retail stores but offered no further explanation besides acknowledgement of “some restructuring.” Byrne has yet to hear from the company itself, and Boisson has not returned a request for comment from BevNET.
On Wednesday in a post on LinkedIn that was later deleted, Jill Sites, vice president of wholesale at Boisson, said “I cannot comment (yet) on the rumors of my current company,” but referenced “things” said Tuesday in an unnamed trade group by a “competitor” of Boisson as “patently untrue,” with more information to come.
Google listings for Boisson’s eight stores in New York, Los Angeles and Miami have been marked “temporarily closed.”
Rumors of an impending closure were initially sparked last Friday, when comments from a former employee were posted on social media by Andrea Hernández of Snaxshot. Since then, Byrne has been among the NA brand founders who have been left in the dark about a retail partner that has played an important role in shaping the adult NA industry.
Lily Geiger, founder of NA aperitivo Figlia, launched her brand in 2021, the same year as Boisson. Since then Boisson has become one of the brand’s biggest accounts and Geiger echoed Byrne’s praise of the retailer for its early support of their brands.
“From the jump, it’s been nice to have their platform and stores to validate the space and raise awareness,” said Geiger.
But now Geiger has received no response to inquiries on the status of Figlia inventory nor the payment she is owed. Other brand founders are equally confused, she said.
“I guess we’re shocked because there was no warning and we obviously didn’t know this was going to happen,” she said.
Building the NA Market
Since launching in NYC in 2021, Boisson has expanded to eight storefronts and closed on a $12 million seed round, in addition to growing its e-commerce program and sharing plans to explore international opportunities. The news comes after the retailer took other major steps to secure its place within the expanding adult NA category.
Last September, Boisson brought on new CEO Sheetal Aiyer and received $5 million in funding as part of a bridge round led by Convivialité Ventures, the VC arm of Pernod Ricard, and Connect Ventures. Aiyer’s appointment as CEO was part of the company’s long-term ambitions of becoming a three-pronged business: retailer, e-commerce site and distributor.
But at the start of this year, the company announced it was switching strategies and leveraging new partnerships with KeHe and craft wine and spirits distributor LibDib to cement a national footprint for wholesale distribution.
That new focus seemed an attempt to create a niche in NA distribution as bev-alc wholesalers and retailers get in on the double-digit growth of the NA category, which topped $510 million in off-premise sales, according to NIQ data. With other retailers adopting the category and major chains beginning to sort out how to standardize non-alc merchandising, Boisson was positioning itself as an expert curator available to support those channels.
But as the category grows elsewhere, it’s possible Boisson’s own retail stores— many in high-rent areas— may have felt the squeeze.
“Running all these stores has really got to be really expensive, as is staffing,” Byrne said. “And then you’ve got big retail just being able to add this part into the everyday shopping experience, and people not wanting to make an additional specific stop on their journey.”
Just as bar-goers are switching from full-proof cocktails to alcohol-free options, across the board, more than 94% of non-alc buyers are also purchasing alcohol-containing beer, wine, and spirits, according to NIQ. Rather than a statement on the endurance of the NA category, Boisson’s closure represents the mainstreaming of the category and the growing opportunity for a larger addressable market, Byrne said.
For now, it’s unknown if Boisson’s distribution operations will continue, and Byrne is among those perplexed by the company’s silence.
“I believe everything is built on the foundation of open relationships and immediately you’re left with a bit of a sour taste in your mouth when you’re hearing things second, third, fourth hand from multiple people and you’re not getting any outreach from the brand owner,” she said. “At the same time people’s jobs are at risk, so I’m not quite sure who is taking the lead and steering the ship or being that person to communicate.”