Cizzle Brands to sell CWENCH Hydration in Fortinos supermarkets

Cizzle Brands Corporation (CBOE: CZZL) has signed a deal to sell its range of CWENCH Hydration sports drinks in stores owned by Canadian grocery chain Fortinos.

The deal will see CWENCH Hydration flavours carried in 24 Fortinos supermarkets throughout the Greater Toronto and Greater Hamilton areas of Ontario, with the ready-to-drink (RTD) format available from April.

Fortinos is part of grocery and retail giant Loblaw Companies which has more than 2400 locations throughout Canada.

Dedicated area

Under the terms of the deal, CWENCH will be stocked in the Nature’s Treasure department of each Fortinos store, which is an area dedicated to organic products and health foods.

Each department has a certified nutritional practitioner on-site to guide consumers towards the most suitable wellness products for their needs.

Promoting the brand

Cizzle will provide practitioners with information that promotes the CWENCH Hydration brand and highlights key attributes such as all-natural ingredients, no sugars and more than six electrolytes per drink.

For its part, Fortinos will advertise CWENCH Hydration in dedicated in-store flyers to bolster awareness of the brand and its availability across its supermarkets.

Distribution network

Cizzle chief executive officer John Celenza welcomed Fortinos to Cizzle’s distribution network.

“An important part of our strategy for growing CWENCH Hydration is being selective with who carries our products in each category… this ensures that Cizzle and our retail partners are properly aligned in growing brand awareness while driving strong margins,” he said.

“This strategy has yielded strong performance for us so far and is part of the reason all Fortinos locations will be supporting CWENCH Hydration with prominent visual merchandising in dedicated high-visibility displays as well as features of the product in their flyer.”

Loblaw exposure

The deal also gives Cizzle exposure to the wider Loblaw group.

“It gets us in the door with Loblaw and we anticipate the group will start carrying CWENCH Hydration elsewhere in their network soon,” Mr Celenza said.

“We look forward to continuing our work with the Fortinos team as we keep building up our brand presence in the Toronto and Hamilton markets.”