Cold-pressed flash-frozen juicer La Presserie sees a lot of promise in its premium cocktail mixes.

The Toronto brand, known primarily for its fresh-frozen juices and salad dressings for the consumer market, as well as bulk products for foodservice, is exploring cocktails. Its new ready-to-use mixers are rolling out to Sobeys and Longo’s banners, with others coming soon.

“We think it’s going to be a big category,” says Rich Rotzang, the company’s general manager, of the potential in selling mixers for cocktails like mojitos and margaritas in grocery stores. “Over the last couple of years, we’ve seen a real rise in craft cocktails. Especially during COVID, a lot of people took to making them and exploring what they could do with fresh fruits and vegetables at home, and this is an extension of that.”

According to Rotzang, drinks can be made at home easily without having to lug home a bag of oranges and lemons, for example. The shopper marketing messaging, including clings on store freezers, amplifies the ease concept with “just add alcohol” verbiage.

Also, most consumers know about cocktails like margaritas, but are either unaware of (or intimidated by) the work that goes into making them “just right,” which is where La Presserie shines. All of its mixers are heavy on fruit juice heavy, and the recipes selected for the rollout of the line are ones that feature juice most prominently.

Rotzang says the primary driver in the category is taste, so appetite appeal is front and centre, something it knows how to do from its experience in juice and dressing, which operate around a similar insight. “Part of the design [done in-house] was thinking about recipes that would work well with our philosophy, and go from there.”

Sharon Rotzang senior director of business development, says the value La Presserie brings is specializing in fruits and vegetables and making them convenient, while keeping the nutritional element, to attract a premium audience, which is broader than many might expect.

She adds that Sobeys and Longo’s are good strategic partners, as they are premium and offer premium products.

“Our philosophy with all of our products is to look at what is available on the market, and we bring it up a level.”

There are cocktail mixers available, Rotzang points out, but these are all shelf stable rather than frozen, and some contain an ingredients sheet that isn’t clean.

Better-for-you products like the La Presserie cocktail mixers fit in very well with Sobeys and Longo’s customers, Rotzang says, where it has already built up trust through its salad dressings. It’s running promotions at both banners, featured in flyers and in-store promotions every few months, with a tearaway couponing strategy to come. At Longo’s, there was also a banner-wide demo in late December.

Over the holiday season, the brand had a launch at Mildred’s Temple Kitchen in Toronto, which drew a strong turnout in December, with media and influencers. That event and initial rollout was organized by Bob’s Your Uncle and The Go To.