While many major and independent brands are jumping onto the billion dollar seltzer bandwagon, for New Zealand born RTD brand Pals, the inclining trend is simply good news for the already established brand.
Emerging as a highly coveted drop at the end of summer 2019, Pals became so immensely popular after its New Zealand launch in October, that by early January 2020 stock was exhausted throughout the entire country. And almost a year later, this Kiwi brand is about to hit the Australian market.
“We weren’t concerned with being the ‘first’ and we’re certainly not a ‘me too’ brand. Pals has been the drink of choice for many New Zealanders this past year and when our pals started asking that we bring it across the ditch, we started to explore our options”, said Co-Founder and Director, Mat Croad.
“We’ve had hundreds of messages from customers living in Australia asking how they could purchase Pals. This often came after they’d travelled to New Zealand, tried Pals and then realised they couldn’t find another brand of the same quality back in Australia.”
Founded by Nick Marshall, Mat Croad, Jay and Anna Reeve, the foursome were motivated to fill a gap in the market after noticing a lack of options catering to the health-conscious consumer. However, more than that, Pals set out to create a lower sugar alcoholic option that actually tasted great too.
Easily identified as an RTD thanks to its vodka, gin and whiskey offerings and not the currently trending (and often confusing) ‘seltzer’, Pals has achieved the crowd-sourced tagline of “the best tasting ones” in its motherland. The co-founders explain that taste had to be second to none and signing off the flavours was “a hugely time-consuming process”, testing more than 50 samples before deciding on the final taste.
Low in natural sugar, low-calorie, gluten-free and vegan-friendly, Pals uses sweetener from apples grown in Hawke’s Bay as its source of sugar and now boasts five flavours – Vodka, Lime and Soda; Gin, Lemon, Cucumber and Soda; American Whiskey, Apple and Soda; Vodka, Watermelon, Mint and Soda; and it’s newest addition, Vodka, Central Otago Peach, Passionfruit and Soda.
Endeavour Group have launched Pals’ number one flavour profile – Vodka, Watermelon, Mint and Lime – into BWS and Dan Murphy’s. The 330 ml cans retail for $22 AUD for a four-pack.
