Leading Brands said this week it has entered into three new co-packing agreements with Ocean Spray International, a North American provider of cranberry juice and other beverage products.
The company has agreed with Ocean Spray to extend the term of their bottling agreement and also add new package sizes to the portfolio bottled for them. As part of this new arrangement the company will work with Ocean Spray in developing new products and ideas.
The company has also signed an agreement with a large North American company in the fast-growing ready-to-drink alcoholic beverage market, to bottle their western United States volume. This arrangement will result in Leading Brands materially increasing production scope and capacity to accommodate the new business.
Leading Brands has further agreed to bottle a variety of products for sale in Western Canada for a regional producer of juice and other beverage products.
Leading Brands' North American bottling president Tim Dagg said: "We estimate that these new agreements will provide us with approximately 4 million cases of incremental volume for our plants. The plant modifications and line installations that accompany these deals will increase our overall plant capacity by more than 25 per cent and allow us considerably more flexibility for new co-packing business and our new product launches. We anticipate that these contracts will be substantially accretive to earnings in 2003."
Leading Brands, which recently expanded in the US, also produces a line of beverages such as TREK Optimized Performance Beverage, Pez 100% Juices, Country Harvest Juices and Cool Canadian Water.