Allied Blenders enters premium gin segment with Zoya

New Delhi: Allied Blenders and Distillers Limited (ABDL), the maker of Officer’s Choice whisky, has entered the gin segment with with a premium brand called Zoya, which will be priced around ₹2,000 in markets such as Haryana.

Currently, nearly all of the company’s sales come from brown spirits. It has been looking to expand its presence in the premium spirits market and has created a vertical called PremBrands for this. Apart from Zoya, PremBrands includes spirits such as Sterling Reserve B10, X&O, Srishti whiskies, and Kyron Brandy.

The company, meanwhile, plans to file its draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) this month and await Sebi’s approval of its IPO. The offering, originally planned for March 2024, is likely to be delayed by a few months, Alok Gupta, managing director and chief executive of the company, told Mint.

To expand its presence in the prestige and luxury segments, the company plans to launch a new product every quarter in calendar year 2024, Gupta added. Zoya gin is its first product in the luxury segment, he said.

“In the spirits market in India right now, the gap lies in the luxury segment where about 12-15 million cases are sold,” Gupta said. India’s premium gin segment is seeing huge growth and outpacing competitive white spirits, albeit on a small base of about 12 lakh cases a year.

“India’s premiumisation story is moving along at an unimaginable pace. From a customer lens, this is a category which is prone to experimentation at a much higher frequency than some of the others. We have also already begun work on flavoured variants of this gin, anticipating demand. Providing these new experiences will also help the mother brand grow,” he added.

The company will manufacture gin at two locations and will begin to sell it in about 10 big markets over the next two quarters.

ABDL has a total of 33 manufacturing units, of which it owns nine (the rest are owned by contract manufacturers). It sells 30 million cases a year. “Our larger portfolio strategy is also to continue to make our mass premium segment profitable, where we have our lead brand Officer’s Choice whisky. This brand has given us an exceptional return on capital. Over the next three to five years we are looking to sell 45 to 50 million cases. A third of our product is captive distillation and two-thirds is bought,” he added.

The company, which competes with the likes of United Spirits Limited, said it clocked gross revenue from operations of ₹7,105 crore in FY23 by selling 31.45 million (nine-litre) cases. Its revenue from operations came in at ₹7,196 crore in FY22, when it sold 28.62 million cases.