Founders of canned cocktail brand Moth on their overnight success

When Rob Wallis and Sam Hunt secured their first order with Waitrose, they could hardly believe their luck.

The school friends had only launched their canned cocktail drink firm, Moth, two-and-a-half years earlier, and were still in the process of securing an investment round.

Fast forward two years and Moth is among the most popular ready-to-drink cocktail brands in the UK.

It has been a whirlwind for the duo, which has seen them go from bottling cocktails by hand to their products being available in 2,000 stores nationwide.

The pair seem a mixture of excited and bemused at their near-overnight success.

Rob Wallis (left) and Sam Hunt (right) launched Moth drinks in 2018 and are now stocked in 2,000 stores nationwide

Rob and Sam, both 28, have known each other ‘for donkey’s years’, having gone to school together before both ending up at York university. 

‘Looking after people with food and drink has been a massive part of our relationship and our lives,’ says Rob. ‘Cooking together at university, hosting… when you haven’t got loads of money, there’s nothing quite like having people over and being hospitable.’

‘You come home on a Friday night and in your fridge you’ve got a can of beer or a bottle of wine, but there was no way to have a cocktail as easy as that. Why couldn’t I have an Old Fashioned as easy as a can of beer or glass of Sauvignon Blanc?

‘We just couldn’t find it. I sent Sam a Facebook message and said I wanted to start a company that makes the perfect bottled Old Fashioned. He sent back the immortal reply, which I still have screen-shotted somewhere: ‘That’s not actually a terrible idea’.’

From there, Rob and Sam launched their first company Buveur, hand filling and hand labelling cocktails in a glass bottle. It secured them a spot in Selfridges, which eventually led to being stocked at the Ritz, but it still wasn’t what the friends had envisioned.

‘You spot the slight issue that we keep talking about a can of beer and a bottle of cocktail…’ says Rob. ‘It was one of the things we’d always said, as easy as a can of beer… but we were in a glass bottle.’

After painstakingly building the brand for two-and-a-half years the duo rebranded to its current version with a canned drink range.

But then the pandemic hit and so many of their partners were forced to close that the pair had to sell via Amazon. 

A surprise success

The ready-to-drink cocktail market had largely gone under the radar before the pandemic. Canned gin and tonics had been on offer, but the trend for hard seltzer seen in the US had not yet made it across the pond.

The pandemic completely changed the rules. 

It’s not the failure that will kill you, it’s the big success 

‘I wish I could say we knew it was coming and we did everything to be ready… but it’s not true,’ says Rob. ‘We were there at the right time in the right place and that meant we could have the conversation with Waitrose, which changed everything.’

Overnight, Moth had gone from being a small brand led by best friends to being rolled out in 200 Waitrose stores nationwide. It was the most cocktails Moth had made in the whole preceding two-and-a-half years.

‘We said when we rebranded, either this goes and we’re ready for scale or it doesn’t work. We said to ourselves, it’s not the failure that will kill you, it’s the big success,’ says Rob.

Sam adds: ‘Everyone says you’ve got to plan for stuff to go wrong, but I think a lot of startups fail to plan for success.’

For two entrepreneurs who say they had little understanding of the business, they strike a mature tone when it comes to the market.

Their ‘plan for success’ meant they focused solely on Waitrose for the first year, which led to Moth becoming the second biggest ready-to-drink brand in the upmarket store, behind only drinks giant Diageo.

Dave Fishwick

Now, Moth can be found in Sainsbury’s, Tesco and even on British Airways flights. There are eight cocktails in the range, including the French 75, Aperitivo Spritz and Pina Colada, which launched last October, adding to the existing range of Negroni, Margarita, Espresso Martini, Old Fashioned and Mojito.

‘The aim really is to become the market leader in premium ready-to-drink,’ says Sam. ‘[We want to] become a household brand like FeverTree, growing that brand and watching consumers learn about Moth and love us. It’s unbelievably rewarding.’

Rob adds: ‘It’s surreal that people know who we are who aren’t our mums! I remember walking down a road in London, seeing one of our Old Fashioned cans that had been left on the side of the street. I think I took about 100 photos!’

Moth now has eight cocktails in its range, including its bestseller Margarita

Moth now has eight cocktails in its range, including its bestseller Margarita

‘We made a product for us’

The duo have managed to make their mark in an industry they actually have little experience in.

While Rob spent some time working in luxury hospitality as a bartender, Sam has a background in film and television. 

Moth is now the ninth most popular ready-to-drink brand in the UK, outselling White Claw hard seltzer, according to Nielsen figures.

It’s surreal that people know who we are that aren’t our mums! 

What did they manage to do right?

Certainly the pandemic helped catapult premixed cocktails into the mainstream.

Moth is on the pricier end – a can is £3.90 for 125ml, almost double the average £2 – but being the cheapest on the market was not what they set out do. 

‘Deliciousness was the core of it. And we’ve got to persuade consumers to pick it up with no marketing budget,’ says Sam. ‘It was standing at a supermarket shelf and going, right well everyone else is colourful, we’ll be black and white. Everyone else is in big cans, we’ll be in small cans. Everyone else is shiny, we’ll be matte.’

Do they consider themselves disruptors in what is fast-becoming a crowded market?

‘I think there’s two types of entrepreneurs,’ says Rob. ‘There’s people who just have an idea, and there’s people who think there’s a niche in a market that needs disruption, like Harry’s with razors.

‘That’s not us, we want to build a product that we’re genuinely proud of, and, actually, it turns out it’s the right time and right place.’

The demographic they are selling to has likely been a significant factor in their success. The friends admit their core market is millennials, although they say the gender split is fairly even.

Top 10 ready to drink brands 

1 – WKD (£1.25)

2 – Gordons G&T (£2.25) 

3 – Jack Daniels (£2.10) 

4 – Malibu (£2) 

5) Smirnoff (£2) 

6) Funkin (£2.20) 

7) All Shook Up (£1.85) 

8) Captain Morgan (£2.35) 

9) Moth (£3.90) 

10) Tails (£3.75) 

Figures – Nielsen 

But at nearly double the price for half the amount of an average canned cocktail, just how much disposable income will this group have in the months to come?

The Moth founders insist that growth continues at breakneck speed, enjoying their biggest-ever Christmas in the business, but they know they’ll have to diversify their revenue stream.

They have partnered with grocery delivery startups like Gorillas and Zapp, again popular among millennials, and recently launched a direct-to-consumer offering through their website.

Where they think they can make the most impact is in the hospitality industry, though. 

‘There’s a staffing crisis and we think we can help,’ says Rob. ‘For an overstretched team that’s being asked to serve cocktails, [selling Moth drinks] actually makes that easier and quicker for the team, and therefore the customer, and is a massive opportunity.

‘We’re kind of on the fence as to what we’ll see this year. But I think there’s lots of people who buy Moth who wouldn’t [usually] buy a canned cocktail.’

Their humility and innovation is a breath of fresh air in an industry that is dominated by large multinationals.

They might well have been in the right place at the right time, but the duo managed to tap into this market well before some of the bigger players have.

With a small team in place, their flexibility means they will be able to work quickly and far better respond to what people want to drink.

This is part of our new series looking at companies disrupting sectors which have historically lacked innovation.

We’ll look at some of the most exciting companies in industries we encounter on a day-to-day basis who want to do things a bit differently.

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