Angostura deepens Europe reach with Italy expansion

The House of An­gos­tu­ra is strength­en­ing its push in­to Eu­rope af­ter sign­ing a new dis­tri­b­u­tion part­ner­ship with Ital­ian spir­its com­pa­ny Ve­li­er S.p.A. to ex­pand its pre­mi­um rum port­fo­lio across Italy.

Un­der the agree­ment, Ve­li­er be­comes An­gos­tu­ra’s ex­clu­sive dis­trib­u­tor for its pre­mi­um rums in Italy, with an ini­tial fo­cus on in­creas­ing vis­i­bil­i­ty in lead­ing bars, restau­rants, and pre­mi­um re­tail chan­nels.

The move forms part of An­gos­tu­ra’s wider in­ter­na­tion­al growth strat­e­gy as the Trinidad-based com­pa­ny con­tin­ues ex­pand­ing its foot­print in over­seas pre­mi­um spir­its mar­kets.

Italy has be­come an in­creas­ing­ly at­trac­tive mar­ket for pre­mi­um and aged spir­its, par­tic­u­lar­ly her­itage Caribbean rums, and An­gos­tu­ra is aim­ing to cap­i­talise on grow­ing con­sumer de­mand through trade ed­u­ca­tion, bar­tender en­gage­ment, and tast­ing events.

Chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Ian Forbes said the part­ner­ship gives An­gos­tu­ra a stronger plat­form in a mar­ket that val­ues pre­mi­um spir­its and au­then­tic­i­ty.

“We are proud to part­ner with Ve­li­er S.p.A. as we con­tin­ue to ex­pand An­gos­tu­ra’s in­ter­na­tion­al pres­ence. Italy is a mar­ket that val­ues pre­mi­um spir­its, mak­ing it an im­por­tant strate­gic fo­cus for our brand.”

He added that Ve­li­er’s ex­per­tise and net­work across the Ital­ian mar­ket po­si­tioned the part­ner­ship for long-term growth.

Ve­li­er chair­man Lu­ca Gargano said the com­pa­ny saw strong op­por­tu­ni­ties to grow An­gos­tu­ra’s pro­file in Italy through fo­cused dis­tri­b­u­tion and con­sumer en­gage­ment.

“We are ho­n­oured to part­ner with the House of An­gos­tu­ra and to rep­re­sent An­gos­tu­ra’s rums in Italy. An­gos­tu­ra is a brand of re­mark­able her­itage and glob­al stand­ing.”

The part­ner­ship is al­so ex­pect­ed to strength­en the pre­mi­um rum seg­ment in Italy by in­creas­ing ac­cess to aged Caribbean rum ex­pres­sions and ex­pand­ing con­sumer aware­ness of rum pro­duc­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Found­ed more than 200 years ago, An­gos­tu­ra ex­ports its rums and bit­ters to more than 170 mar­kets world­wide and re­mains one of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s best-known in­ter­na­tion­al brands.