Schweppes — Wholesale Supply

For the on-trade, Schweppes is not a soft drink — it is the mixer a guest expects when they order a gin and tonic. FMCG Depot supplies the range wholesale from Aalter in Belgium as genuine, EU-sourced stock in original manufacturer packaging, exporting to hotel groups, bar-supply distributors, caterers and retailers alongside the rest of the beverages stocked in Aalter. It is the one line in the beverage book where the buyer's real question is about range completeness and glass handling rather than about price per case.

The mixer range is the product, not the SKU

On-trade accounts do not buy tonic; they buy a mixer wall. A bar that lists Indian tonic but has no soda water cannot build a highball, and one without ginger ale loses every mule and every long whisky serve. The range that matters in practice is Indian tonic, slimline tonic, soda water, ginger ale, bitter lemon and lemonade, and the distributor who can put all six on one delivery keeps the account. That is why we quote Schweppes as a range, with the split across variants set at order stage, rather than as one fast-moving SKU with the rest treated as an afterthought. Distributors covering the soft-drink side of the same account list frequently add Arizona Iced Tea by the pallet to round out the non-alcoholic offer, and accounts that need a second mixer tier alongside the premium one also list Kinley.

Exporting glass without losing a pallet to breakage

Small-serve glass is the HoReCa standard and the hardest beverage format to move over a long sea leg. Most exporter pages skip this entirely, so it is worth setting out how we handle it. Glass travels differently from cans: the load is heavier for its cube, so a glass-led pallet usually reaches the container's weight limit well before it fills the space, and the load plan has to be built around weight rather than around pallet count. We stack glass low and square, run layer pads between tiers so the case tops carry the load rather than the bottle shoulders, keep glass at the bottom of any mixed tier, and strap and wrap back to the pallet base so nothing walks during a roll. Where a route or a season warrants it, additional void fill and edge protection go on before loading.

None of that is free, which is why glass, cans and PET price and load differently even for the same flavour. The palletisation, case count and pallets per container for the formats you order are confirmed in writing on the pro-forma against the allocation offered, together with the handling applied to them. If your destination will accept cans, we will tell you where the can format gives a materially better load — we would rather move the volume than sell you breakage.

On-trade and off-trade pull different formats

The channel decides the format, and confusing the two is the most common ranging error on this brand. Bars, hotels and airlines want the small mixer serve, the format that is poured once and never stored open, because it protects carbonation and portion control behind the bar. Retail, forecourt and grocery want cans and larger PET, where the shopper is buying for a home bar and the price per litre is visible on shelf. Catering, banqueting and event operators sit between the two and usually take larger PET on volume.

Because mixers ride on spirits volume, demand moves with the spirits calendar rather than with the soft-drink season: the festive period, the summer terrace trade and duty-free channels all pull at once. Buyers assembling a full account order alongside the mixer wall commonly take 7UP by the pallet for the lemon-lime serve and Coca-Cola by the pallet for the cola pour, so one delivery covers the whole back-bar soft-drink list.

Consolidate the load. A glass-led beverage container hits its weight limit with cube to spare, and that leftover space is worth using. Light, bulky ambient lines fill it well: adding Pringles by the pallet or a comparable snack block to a mixer shipment is a routine way for a HoReCa distributor to balance the load and take one arrival instead of two.

Market version and label set change by territory

Schweppes is not operated as a single global business. Rights to the brand are held and licensed by different companies in different territories, which is why the same name can arrive with a different label set, a different flavour line-up and a different format ladder depending on where the stock was produced. For an importer that is a compliance question before it is a commercial one: your customs authority and your retail customer both care which market version they are receiving. We confirm the production origin, the market version and the label language for the specific allocation offered before the pro-forma is signed, and we flag it when the version we can supply is not the one your accounts are used to seeing.

Range, formats and export paperwork

Every shipment moves as genuine brand-owner stock in sealed original manufacturer packaging, with the documentation an importer needs to clear it. We have supplied trade buyers in more than 60 countries for over a decade, on terms that let you take the freight where it suits you.

• Indian tonic, slimline tonic, soda water, ginger ale, bitter lemon and lemonade
• Small-serve mixer cans, 330ml cans, glass and 1L PET, subject to allocation
• Glass handled with layer pads, low square stacking and strapped, wrapped pallets
• Genuine brand-owner stock in sealed original manufacturer packaging
• EUR.1 movement certificate, Certificate of Origin, commercial invoice, packing list and export declaration
• EXW, FOB, CIF and DAP through Antwerp and Rotterdam

If you are still weighing how much of an account order the mixer wall should carry, the assortment case for Schweppes puts it next to the rest of the beverage book by channel.

Ordering, documentation and quantities. Minimum order quantity, format availability and current allocation are quoted per enquiry rather than published, because glass, cans and PET move independently of each other. Opening a trade account takes a few minutes through wholesale registration, and the recurring ordering questions about Schweppes — documentation, Incoterms, part-loads and consolidation — are answered before you send an enquiry.