Commission, Taxes & Death

Navigating Modern Drinks Distribution: Why the Industry Needs Better Tools

First of all, I understand the challenges facing distribution partners today. As a brand owner myself with 'Broken Barrier'—a 100% Agave Tequila naturally infused with flavour—I've experienced both sides of this relationship. I wanted what I'd built to be shoulder to shoulder with great brands, seeking complementary listings and the best distribution points. We all want to work with the best partners, represent the best liquid, and secure the best locations. Nobody wants to say they're working with the fourth-best distributor or representing mediocre brands.

However, the modern distribution landscape presents unprecedented challenges that make delivering on these ambitions increasingly difficult. Rising energy prices, the UK's duty tax being 40% higher than the average European country, and our hospitality industry paying 20% VAT compared to other European countries (Belgium is 6%) are all squeezing margins and making the job harder for everyone involved.

When I couldn't find distribution partners equipped to scale my brand at the pace and with the focus it needed, I created Lateish Drinks. But more importantly, I created Canlyn—the platform that would allow us to operate differently and, ultimately, help other agencies and distributors do the same.

Lateish Drinks' founding team includes a brand owner and a global sales director, bringing together over 25 years of combined experience in the food and drink industry. We joined this space driven by hustle and hedonism. But we quickly found that the bigger the industry gets, the more disjointed the distribution model becomes. So we pooled our resources, modernised the approach with technology, and built a system that works.

Before we get into this, it's important to note that this is not a critique of distributors or agencies operating under any particular model. This is about recognising shared challenges and offering solutions that help everyone—brands, distributors, customers, and consumers—navigate an increasingly complex market.

The Portfolio Management Challenge

Whether you operate on commission, retainer, or hybrid models, the fundamental challenge remains the same: how do you give adequate attention to every brand in your portfolio when you're carrying 60+ brands and 150-200 SKUs?

Take a premium infused tequila as an example—a beautiful product in a rapidly growing UK market, but it will never match the sales volume of a house-pour vodka. If your sales team of 10 is trying to represent that many brands, something inevitably gets neglected. It's not malicious; it's mathematical.

The issue compounds when you consider that each brand in your portfolio is competing not just internally but against numerous other brands from other distributors, all vying for the same shelf space, the same menu listings, the same buyer meetings. Achieving visibility and market share becomes daunting amidst the noise.

This is where transparency breaks down. Brand partners want to know: How many conversations are happening about their product? Which accounts are being targeted? What's the pipeline looking like? Without systems to track and demonstrate this activity, distributors face constant pressure from brand partners who feel their product isn't getting enough attention.

Market Saturation and Category Chaos

It's always been a competitive market, but portfolio saturation creates specific operational challenges. When a distributor handles eight gin brands selling 18 different flavour variations, how do BDMs prioritise their time? How do they ensure each brand gets its fair share of attention while also playing to their own strengths and relationships?

The traditional answer has been: let the market decide, let sales performance dictate focus. But this creates a vicious cycle. Brands that aren't getting proactive attention don't perform, which leads to less attention, which leads to worse performance.

Brand partners then start pushing for solutions: "lower your price," "throw more money at marketing fees," "fund a dedicated salesperson." Before long, brands are spending 25%+ of their expected turnover just trying to stay visible within their own distributor's portfolio.

What's missing isn't effort or ambition—it's structure. Distributors need systems that allow them to demonstrate equitable effort, track activity across their entire portfolio, and give brand partners the transparency they're demanding.

The Scaling Problem

Let's say you've done the hard work. You've secured 60 distribution points in London and 40 in Manchester for a brand partner. That's significant progress. But now they want to scale nationally, and you've got three BDMs already stretched thin across your portfolio.

The brand partner sees their success and wants acceleration. They're willing to invest in growth, but they need to see coordinated effort. They might even consider hiring their own field sales team, but then the question becomes: how does that integrate with your operations? How do you avoid duplication? How do you ensure everyone's working from the same pipeline, targeting the right accounts, and not stepping on each other's toes?

Without proper systems, scaling becomes chaotic. You end up with fragmented information, duplicated effort, and frustrated brand partners who can't see the full picture of what's happening in market.

The Relationship Strain

Building strong, lasting relationships with brand partners is crucial for long-term success. But when you're managing dozens of brands and facing constant pressure to show results for each one, those relationships become transactional rather than strategic.

Brand partners need to know they're a priority. They need transparency. They need to understand where their product sits in your focus, how much activity is happening, and what the pipeline looks like. Without the tools to demonstrate this clearly, every conversation becomes defensive rather than collaborative.

The same goes for customer relationships. Your BDMs are juggling multiple brands, trying to remember which buyer prefers what, when to follow up, what was discussed in the last meeting. The cognitive load is enormous, and details slip through the cracks.

Innovation and Category Evolution

Markets evolve rapidly. Who could have foreseen flavoured tequila's 974% growth in the USA from 2017 to 2022? Or the explosion of the low-and-no alcohol category?

Distribution partners need to be able to spot these trends early, position their brand partners accordingly, and move quickly. But when your BDMs are drowning in admin, chasing data across spreadsheets, and trying to remember what they discussed with 30 different buyers last month, strategic thinking gets pushed aside.

The challenge isn't lack of expertise or market knowledge—it's lack of systems that free up mental bandwidth for the strategic work that drives real value.

How Canlyn Solves These Problems

At Lateish Drinks, we built Canlyn to address exactly these challenges. It's the platform that allows each of our BDMs to manage 9 brands effectively while maintaining 20+ meaningful conversations per week per brand.

Here's what that looks like in practice:

Portfolio Visibility: Every brand partner can see exactly how much activity their brand is getting. How many conversations happened this week? Which accounts are in the pipeline? What stage is each opportunity at? This transparency builds trust and eliminates the constant "what's happening with my brand?" questions.

Equitable Attention: Canlyn helps BDMs structure their time so every brand gets consistent focus, regardless of current sales volume. The platform tracks activity across the portfolio, flagging brands that haven't had enough conversations or movement, ensuring nothing falls through the cracks.

Scalable Operations: Whether you're managing 20 brands or 60, Canlyn gives you the infrastructure to scale without chaos. As you add BDMs or expand into new markets, everyone works from the same system with full visibility into what's happening across the business.

Customer Relationship Management: Every conversation, every preference, every follow-up is captured and accessible. Your BDMs can walk into any meeting with full context, building stronger relationships and closing more opportunities.

Data-Driven Decisions: Instead of guessing which brands need more support or which categories are gaining traction, you have real data. You can spot trends early, allocate resources strategically, and demonstrate ROI to brand partners with confidence.

Why This Matters for Every Distribution Model

Whether you operate on commission, retainer, or hybrid structures, Canlyn addresses the fundamental operational challenges that every distributor faces:

• Accountability to brand partners who need transparency

• Efficiency for BDMs who are managing complex portfolios

• Scalability as you grow your business

• Competitive advantage through better data and relationships

At Lateish Drinks, we operate on a retainer model with category exclusivity, but Canlyn wasn't built just for our model. It was built to solve the universal challenges of modern distribution: too many brands, too much complexity, too little transparency, and too few tools to manage it all effectively.

Working Together

The beverage industry is becoming more challenging for everyone. Costs are rising, competition is intensifying, and brand partners are demanding more transparency and results. Distribution partners need every advantage they can get.

We understand these dynamics intimately because we live them every day. We've built Canlyn to help agencies and distributors operate more efficiently, build stronger brand partnerships, and scale with confidence.

Whether your agency represents 15 brands or 150, whether you're focused on spirits, wine, or low-and-no, the challenges are the same: managing attention, demonstrating activity, and building relationships that last.

Canlyn is the infrastructure that makes it possible.

If you're facing these challenges in your distribution business, we'd love to show you how Canlyn can help. We're not here to tell you how to run your business or what compensation model to use. We're here to provide the tools that let you execute your strategy more effectively, whatever that strategy might be.

Conclusion

The beverage distribution industry is at an inflection point. Costs are rising, competition is intensifying, and the old ways of managing portfolios—spreadsheets, gut instinct, heroic individual effort—aren't scaling.

What's needed isn't just harder work or bigger teams. It's better systems. Tools that give you visibility across your portfolio, help your BDMs work more efficiently, and provide the transparency brand partners are demanding.

At Lateish Drinks, we built Canlyn to solve our own operational challenges. But we quickly realised that every distribution partner faces the same fundamental problems. That's why we're making Canlyn available to agencies and distributors who want to operate with greater efficiency, transparency, and scale.

This isn't about changing your business model. It's about giving you the infrastructure to execute whatever model you've chosen more effectively. Because at the end of the day, we're all in this industry for the same reason: to represent great liquid, build lasting relationships, and create value for everyone involved.

The market is only getting more complex. The question is: do you have the tools to thrive in it?

Let's build the future of distribution together.