Fellr is ramping up for summer, launching the first of its cocktail seltzer range, the Watermelon Margarita, and opening its pop-up seltzer bar, The Fellr Garden of Fizz, on Friday.
Fellr tested the market for the Watermelon Margarita, serving it on tap at GABS 2021 earlier this year where it was extremely well received and now, the canned cocktail is now being rolled out at Boozebud, First Choice Liquor stores and select independents.
Kaddy’s Marketing Manager Patrick Feary suggests that the rise of seltzer is having a knock-on effect as canned drinks reinvent themselves and up their game.
He says, “The ongoing trend towards premiumisation and the ATO’s changes to takeaway cocktail excise has helped awaken people’s tastes when it comes to indulgent premixed drinks made with high-quality spirits. We’re seeing an increase in sales of canned, bottled, and even pouch or bag-based packaged craft cocktails that emphasise taste and experience.”
The canned cocktail category grew by more than 86 per cent globally last year, according to research from Nielsen. Fellr’s founders, Will Morgan and Andy Skora quickly gleaned the oppportunity.
Mr Skora said, “At Fellr we’re huge on innovation, and have always been looking at where we can take Fellr next. Both coming from a spirits background, cocktail culture and mixology has always been a passion of ours, so we’ve always been excited how we could combine the two spaces.”
The Watermelon Margarita has an ABV of 6.3 per cent, contains only 97 calories and less than 1g sugar per can, is gluten free and vegan friendly. Fellr’s next flavour offering – the Passionfruit Martini – will be out later in the season.
Fellr’s founders say that according to trade, “there is a huge appetite for higher ABV seltzers”. For them, this presented an opportunity to tap into a new market of drinkers and “new drinking occasions that low ABV seltzers didn’t quite satisfy”.
Fellr Co-Founder Will Morgan said, “We’re hugely excited for the launch of our new higher ABV range of cocktail seltzers, to complement our current range. Cocktail seltzers are the perfect drink to really dial up the night.”
However, huge growth for seltzers is expected to continue this summer. Endeavour Group has just doubled its ranging in Dan Murphy’s and BWS and White Claw is expected to lead category growth in Australia where it already has a third the market share. Hard seltzer is a $50 million-plus category here, and hard seltzers are already worth 10 per cent of the light RTD category.
Mr Feary says Kaddy is seeing huge growth, especially now that brands are established in market.
“Australians have gravitated towards high quality, flavour focussed seltzers. I think that’s why we’ve seen huge success from craft brewers like Wayward, Hop Nation and Moon Dog and the exponential growth from local independent new brands, like FELLR and DELVI that have prioritised natural fruit flavours.
“Given the consistently high sales volumes we’ve seen through winter and lockdowns on the East Coast, seltzer as a category will only continue to gain rapid momentum throughout this Summer.”
With lockdown lifting in Sydney, be sure to sample the whole Fellr range which is available at the FELLR Garden of Fizz in the Royal Botanic Gardens for the whole of summer. It’s open Thursdays through Sundays from 10.00am-7.30pm with live music performances from the end of this month.
