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De Kuyper Royal Distillers has acquired ‘British icon’ Archers Peach Schnapps from Diageo.

The Dutch family company said the acquisition was the ‘perfect complement’ to its existing premium cocktail liqueurs portfolio.

In keeping with its “Own the Cocktail” vision De Kuyper said the move further strengthened its position, especially in the UK, the second most important cocktail market in the world.

“We want to own the peach category. With Peachtree we do so in a number of important cocktail markets, but in UK the peach category is historically owned by Archers. We had the choice to keep competing with Archers or to try to acquire Archers and add the brand to our premium liqueur portfolio. We decided to do the latter,” explained Mark de Witte, CEO of De Kuyper.

“Archers is a high-quality liqueur with a great heritage, deeply rooted in UK consumers’ minds when it comes to peach liqueurs. This strong brand performs very stably and has remained relevant for consumers in the UK ever since its launch. For De Kuyper the brand will have high priority and we will contribute our over 325 years of expertise in liqueurs and our specific knowledge in the peach category to bring out the best in Archers.”

Diageo said the transaction will not have a material impact on its earnings.

As part of this transaction, Diageo has agreed a 24-month manufacturing supply agreement with De Kuyper Royal Distillers.

John Kennedy, Diageo’s President, Europe, commented: “We are committed to creating value for all our stakeholders through delivering consistent and efficient growth, including actively shaping our portfolio towards opportunities that will maximise growth over the long-term.

“We take a disciplined approach to capital allocation and this announcement continues our track-record of active portfolio management.”

After its launch in 1986 De Kuyper said Archers became one of the fastest growing drink brands in the UK market and founded a new category. Today, Archers is “a very well-known brand in the UK for both consumption at home and in bars and restaurants”.

Godelief van Erve, global marketing director at De Kuyper added: “We see an interesting growth platform for Archers in the category of cocktails and will utilize the insights, experience and best practices we gained with Peachtree. Our focus stays on the current audience where the brand is popular and which is fitting very well with the cocktail-drinker target group.”

Morning update

The London Stock Market is open this morning as usual following the death of Queen Elisabeth II yesterday evening.

The FTSE 100 has risen 1.1% so far this morning to 7,342.7pts.

Early risers include Just Eat Takeaway.com, up 4% to 1,461.4p, Kerry Group, up 3.2% to €99.16 and Hilton Food Group, up 2.6% to 971.8p.

Fallers include Nichols, down 2.9% to 1,122p, Coca Cola HBC, down 0.7% to 1,940.5p and PayPoint, down 0.6% to 606.5p.

Yesterday in the City

The FTSE gained 0.3% to close at 7,262.1pts yesterday, clawing back some of Wednesday’s dip.

Associated British Foods was a major faller, dropping 7.6% to 1,345p after downgrading its earnings expectations for its 2022/23 financial year amid the impact of the strong US dollar, weakening UK consumer confidence and soaring inflation on its Primark retail business.

Other fallers included B&M European Value Retail, down 5% to 344.1p, Tesco, down 4.8% to 237.4p, Sainsbury’s, down 4.5% to 197.6p, Marks & Spencer, down 4.2% to 116.9p, Kerry Group, down 2.2% to €96.12 and PayPoint, down 1.6% to 610p.

The day’s risers include Nichols, up 7.9% to 1,155p, SSP Group, up 3.8% to 216.6p, Finsbury Food Group, up 2.6% to 78p, Ocado, up 2.4% to 751.2p, McBride, up 2.1% to 24p and Haleon, up 2% to 260.2p.

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