TORONTO, Canada – Cizzle Brands Corporation announced that the Blue Raspberry and Rainbow ready-to-drink (“RTD”) flavours of its flagship brand CWENCH Hydration are now being carried in 54 Esso, Shell, MacEwen, and Quickie gas stations in Ontario and Quebec that are owned and operated by MacEwen Petroleum.
This chain placement of CWENCH Hydration™ products was secured by Van Houtte Coffee Services (“VHCS”), which is a subsidiary of Keurig Canada Inc., doing business as Keurig Dr Pepper Canada.
In a press release dated January 29, 2025, Cizzle Brands announced its distribution agreement with VHCS, in which VHCS would distribute the Company’s product lines across Canada and take over distributorship for certain existing Cizzle Brands accounts in categories including sporting goods retailers and stadiums.
Cizzle Brands highlights the following aspects of the MacEwen placement, with respect to the foreseeable business value that can be generated through the Company’s relationship with VHCS:
Within just the first few weeks of distributing for Cizzle Brands, VHCS has already landed a full-chain placement with an operator of 54 retail locations in two provinces under major banners that include Esso and Shell;
This placement has also brought CWENCH Hydration into the gas/convenience channel, a retail category in which single-serving beverages are often purchased routinely by consumers;
VHCS services over 30,000 commercial sites in total, meaning that there is tremendous untapped potential for CWENCH Hydration and potentially other Cizzle Brands products to be placed within a portfolio of tens of thousands of points of sale/consumption across Canada; and
With established and highly efficient infrastructure for warehousing, distribution, and last-mile delivery, VHCS provides the ability to instantly scale CWENCH Hydration™’s Canadian footprint in a way that preserves Cizzle Brands’ margins without the cost burden of creating or maintaining a logistics network.
Cizzle Brands Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer, John Celenza commented, “Working with VHCS was a transformational step for Cizzle Brands, as it enables us to commercialize CWENCH Hydration™ at a mass scale in a short amount of time. Making the product available to consumers in convenient locations is a key part of driving brand adoption in the beverage category, and this partnership with VHCS gives us the ability to accelerate that availability at a scale that is not normally possible for newer brands on the market.
More specifically, major beverage distributors such as Keurig Dr Pepper do not normally take on brands that have only recently launched. Following the market debut of CWENCH Hydration™ in May of 2024, we have steadily built grassroots-level demand, and we believe that VHCS will be an important catalyst for this natural next step in our growth journey. CWENCH Hydration™ has only been placed in a small percentage of VHCS’ accounts so far, and just a couple of weeks into the relationship, this truly is just the beginning.”
