The entrepreneurs behind Didsbury Gin are celebrating ‘a solid year’ thanks to partnerships with leading restaurant and bar groups.
Co-founders Mark Smallwood and Liam Manton said revenues for 2018 grew to £250,000 but in the first quarter of 2019 they have recorded sales of £278,000.
The pair, who took their inspiration from Didsbury’s Fletcher Moss & Parsonage botanical gardens, put the brand’s financial success down to partnerships with JD Wetherspoons, Botanist owners New World Trading Company and distributors Matthew Clark and LWC.
Didsbury Gin is also stocked in department stores Selfridges and Harvey Nichols.
Mark said: “We knew we had something and winning these big players over just confirmed it.
“We don’t have ambitions to become an experience brand, we believe in the quality of our product, our ability to create amazing twists on classic flavour profiles and we want as many people to enjoy the gin as possible so we set a course to get there very early on.”
At the end of 2018, Didsbury Gin, now in its second year of trading, secured a £75,000 investment from BBC show Dragon’s Den.
The distiller, which struck a deal with the show’s dragon Jenny Campbell, said it had helped raise the brand’s profile.
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Liam said: “We’ve worked hard with Jenny and her team to make sure that we can be where we need to be financially to make this a success.
“We have quickly reduced our production costs, without compromising on the quality of our product of brand as we’ve scaled up and a very grown-up rebrand has put the bottle where we want it to be, so that it will stand out on the shelf.”
Ms Campbell added: “In a very short amount of time they have turned their idea into a business valued at several million pounds and I am proud to be seeing them realise their potential in solid growth month by month.”
Didsbury Gin said it is aiming to hit £4m by the end of 2019, as it plans to launch a range of new flavours throughout the year.
The start-up has also expanded its team, recruiting Amy Harrison as brand marketing manager and Jon Boyce as account manager, who has taken on the responsibility for building local relationships, running events and developing on-trade business.