Food & Drink

SB meets… Mark Livings, Lyre’s CEO

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The CEO of non-alcoholic ‘spirit’ Lyre’s tells us about how he constructed a pandemic-proof enterprise and his ambition to place the model behind each bar on the earth.

Mark Livings, Lyre's CEO

Mark Livings, CEO of non-alcoholic ‘spirits’ model Lyre’s

Lyre’s is now valued at greater than £100 million (US$138.7m). What has led to the corporate’s huge growth over the previous couple of years?

“There’s a confluence of things. The non-alcoholic ‘spirits’ sector is a black swan occasion within the shopper items class. I don’t suppose we’ve seen something as disruptive in beverage alcohol since Bacardi Breezers again within the 80s.

“The second factor that we’ve achieved is we’ve structured our enterprise from the start to be world. We didn’t take the standard pathway of sending it into our personal market and making an attempt to make it work in a single geography after which scale past that; we knew that we wished to be world.

“Thirdly, we’ve constructed the enterprise like a Silicon Valley tech startup. It’s crammed with absolute rock stars which can be enormously succesful, skilled and autonomous. I’ve obtained the Navy SEALs of the beverage trade in our staff.”

You’ve had plenty of crowdfunding drives. How a lot funding have you ever raised and what’s going to you utilize the funds for?

“The primary fundraiser was a small household and associates spherical of £1 million [US$1.4m]. The second was a seed spherical and we raised £9m [US$11.5m], and we’ve simply raised £5m [US$7m] in our third spherical, so it’s a complete of £15m [US$21.1m].

“The newest spherical was a bridge spherical, just because we’re rising quicker than anticipated. We want a bit of bit extra capital to take care of that development and to get on prime of worldwide provide chains proper now, which have been significantly brittle. We have to construct our stock and availability in our markets, and be certain that we are able to maintain sufficient product in step with the expansion that’s taking place.”

Will you launch additional fundraising drives?

“We absolutely count on to do yet one more main spherical, most certainly subsequent yr sooner or later.”

How a lot would you be trying to increase?

“Is dependent upon the enterprise efficiency. I absolutely count on a Collection B quantum, so wherever from £25m to £35m [US$35m-US$49m]. It actually is dependent upon if we proceed to see this exponential development. And if we do, we might have to boost barely extra simply to proceed to take care of it. We’re stretching our manufacturing capabilities already, in order that’s most likely the one factor that might maintain us again.”

Are you trying to construct your personal manufacturing websites?

“The beauty of how we make our product is we are able to use third-party co-packing. We at the moment manufacture in 4 places, two within the UK, a US website and an Australian website.

“We’re taking a look at further places simply to shorten the provision chain. It additionally provides us a a lot smaller environmental footprint by manufacturing in market and it takes lots of the provision chain threat out that we’re experiencing on the earth of 2021.

“By way of our personal website, we’ve undoubtedly approached the purpose the place we’re delivering volumes that brings it into the realms of chance, and it’s one thing that we’re actively analysing in the intervening time.”

Are there any markets that you simply’re specializing in?

“We’re accessible now in 43 international locations, and 60 inside the subsequent two quarters. We will likely be coming into Africa and South America.

“We will likely be launching throughout the GCC this quarter. We proceed to extend our footprint throughout Asia – we’re already accessible in 5 Southeast Asia international locations and Mainland China.”

Are you trying to transfer into different drinks classes, similar to low-alcohol?

“It’s a tough no to low-alcohol. It’s a complicated proposition for the buyer. We are going to proceed to deal with spirits.

“We’ve launched our new ready-to-drink (RTD) merchandise into Australia and the US, and will likely be launching into the UK and the EU in July this yr.

“We’ve got the Classico RTD which is our homage to Prosecco, the Amalfi Spritz which is our homage to the Aperol Spritz, and a G&T.

“We’re nearly to launch a further two RTDs: the Darkish and Spicy, which is our tackle a Darkish and Stormy cocktail, and our American Malt and cola.

“We’re planning new merchandise will go well with the totally different flavour preferences of various components of the world. There will likely be a raft of latest product growth over the subsequent 12 months.”

How do you see the non-alcoholic ‘spirits’ sector creating over the subsequent couple of years?

“Non-alcoholic ‘spirits’ will likely be equally as disruptive as non-alcoholic beer has been to beer. I feel will probably be equally as disruptive as plant-based milk was to conventional dairy, and plant-based protein to conventional animal protein.

“When you have a look at the full spirits class by worth globally it’s a US$300 billion to US$350bn class. Inside 5 years, non-alcoholic ‘spirits’ may take not less than 5% to six% of that, so I feel will likely be a actually develop into a US$15bn to US$20bn class inside the subsequent 5 years globally.”

What are a number of the challenges going through non-alcoholic ‘spirits’ producers?

“It’s terribly tough to make a high-quality non-alcoholic ‘spirit’. Loads of that’s to do with how can we maintain it secure within the bottle, and the way it travels by means of conventional spirits provide chains.

“The second problem is schooling and understanding. The third is that we’re in a pandemic and coping with world provide chains could be very tough. That’s going to be difficult for anybody who has the ambition to scale in the intervening time – it’s very tough to develop worldwide markets.”

How has the pandemic affected your small business?

“We had been actually fortunate in a few methods. We by chance constructed a pandemic-proof enterprise. We didn’t have any workplaces wherever; the enterprise was totally digital from the start by design. We had been a digital-first enterprise so we put huge quantities of our funding into constructing functionality on-line.”

What are your priorities for the subsequent 12 months?

“We wish to see a bottle of Lyre’s behind each bar on the earth. We wished to be probably the most accessible [non-alcoholic ‘spirit’] on the earth and we’ve already achieved that in beneath two years.

“We wish to retain our management in style, and we’ve obtained now greater than 200 worldwide wine and spirits awards to our identify, considerably outperforming each different non-alcoholic ‘spirit’ on the earth.”

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