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May 8, 2023 BIZ SPOTLIGHT

Foxon Park Beverages creates buzz adding booze to sodas

PHOTOS | Jordan Grice Jay Brancati, VP at Foxon Park Beverages.
By Jordan Grice

There may only be a few keys to achieving longevity in business if you don't have the luxury of abundant funding from venture capitalists.

For Foxon Park Beverages, brand recognition and a loyal fan base have been paramount to the East Haven company’s century-long legacy of making and selling sodas to restaurants and grocers throughout Connecticut.

That legacy is getting bigger, as the East Haven company made inroads into the buzzing hard soda industry in March of this year with the help of Thimble Island Brewing Co.

"We've been talking about that and milling around for a couple of years, and for that to come to fruition was fantastic," said Jay Brancati, vice president of Foxon Park Beverages.

The new spiked sodas, now available in cream and classic white birch flavors, are a first for Foxon Park, according to Brancati, who said the endeavor was meant to "test the waters" with a new product.

To his surprise, he said the experiment has "exceeded our expectations exponentially."

"It sold out within the first week," he said. "We had made a couple of batches of it, and we ran out of cans because we—Justin (Gargano) and I—thought it's March, it's cold, and people aren't looking to go out and drink, but we were wrong. It sold better than we thought."

Foxon Park's foray into the hard soda business has been a work in progress for years, according to Brancati, who initially connected with Thimble Island to help the East Haven brand with canning its sodas so they could ship overseas.

With the success of their initial launch, Brancati said Foxon Park plans to continue working with the brewery while it continues to grow its overarching business.

According to Brancati, the business has managed to maintain steady growth through the years despite hurdles like the pandemic and even the current economic volatility associated with elevated inflation.

Foxon Park manufactures sodas in an assortment of flavors, from white birch to root beer to ginger ale.

The company sells its array of sodas wholesale. Foxon Park charges $20.50, $22.75, and $10.30 for a case of 1-liter, 12-ounce, and 2-liter bottles, respectively.

While the company had to shoulder disruptions in distributions to restaurants as sit-down dining took a hit in 2020 and part of 2021, Brancati said the company was buoyed by its partnerships with grocery stores.

"During COVID, we kind of thrived a little bit," he said. "We were allowed to keep going, and these things were flying off the shelves because people were stocking up."

The company employs 14 people from its East Haven facility at 103 Foxon Boulevard and has thrived without the help of outside funding, according to Brancati.

With the pandemic in the rearview mirror, business and distribution have picked back up. He said the company has averaged between $2 million and $5 million in annual revenue in the past few years.

With its entry into the buzzing hard soda and seltzer industry, that could be boosted in the coming year.

According to market research and consulting company Grand View Research, the global hard seltzer market size is expected to grow into a $14.5 billion industry by 2027. That's roughly a $10 billion jump from 2019, when the industry started catching steam.

Century-long appeal

Foxon Park's Connecticut roots run deep, going back to 1922 when Matteo Naclerio launched the company in East Haven after emigrating from Italy.

The business started selling bottled spring water in the 1920s before transitioning to soda following the Great Depression, and the brand initially thrived by making home deliveries to customers.

According to Brancati, that was merely a stepping stone for the business, which cultivated relationships with other local, family-owned companies that helped the Foxon Park brand gain exposure with consumers.

"As restaurants started opening up, they started selling to the delis and the pizza places and other Italian immigrants, and that just kind of snowballed," Brancati said, adding that the soda brand developed a loyal fan base in Connecticut thanks in large part to the state's famous pizza scene.

With brands like Pepe's and Modern Apizza carrying the beverages in their locations statewide and beyond, Foxon Park has become almost synonymous with New Haven pizza.

Modern, for example, has partnered with Foxon Park since 1934, according to William Pustari, who manages and cooks at Modern Apizza in New Haven.

"That relationship stems back as far as my family has been with Modern," he said, adding that the pizzeria only serves Foxon Park soda to support another local business.

With two long standing legacies of serving Connecticut residents, Pustari said the two businesses meshed perfectly as his family tried to provide their customers with an authentic mom-and-pop-shop experience.

"There's a lot of attention on New Haven pizza right now, and we try to stay as grounded to our roots as possible, and (Foxon Park is) a big part of that," he said.

Adding hard sodas to the Foxon Park offerings adds another layer to that experience, according to Pustari. He thinks expansion into alcoholic beverages will be a hit with his long standing customers who grew up on both brands.

"(For those customers) it's like wow, this brand is a lot more intertwined in my life and other people's lives who grew up on it because it's not just the soda now," he explained. "It's not like they're really straying away from the taste of their brand, which is the toughest part when you bring a new product line in.”

That local support has paid off in the long run as Foxon Park has branched out and onto shelves of several grocery stores over the years. According to Brancati, the company’s products are on the shelves of nearly 100 Stop and Shops, 50 Big Y's, and several other stores throughout the state.

Foxon Park has also made its way to other states with the help of expanding brands like Pepe's, which has locations in Florida, Massachusetts, New York, Maryland, Rhode Island and Virginia.

Despite the significant support locally, building a similar appeal outside of Connecticut has been a struggle, according to Brancati.

"Around here, our name thrives because they know it's a good product, and it's in their face all the time," Brancati said. "When we start branching out into different states and areas, our name really doesn't mean anything."

He has tried to improve brand awareness and appeal by visiting food shows and grocers out of state while also relying on connections with expanding pizza brands and restaurateurs to get people to try the local guy.

"If you put us against Coke or Pepsi around here, people are going to buy us," he said.

Overall, Brancati notes that Foxon Park has its sights set on growth. He said the company wants to start shipping its soda overseas to different countries and getting them on the shelves of major box stores like Costco and BJ's.

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