Sans Drinks moves fully online, appoints administrators

Launched in 2020 by beauty company Nourished Life founder Irene Falcone, Sans Drinks is a non alcoholic beverage company which she describes as “an extension of a lifestyle and beauty brand.” The company offers a variety of non-alcoholic versions of beverages from their own brand and others including wine, spirits, and ready to drink booze free cocktails.

Sans Drinks opened Australia’s first bricks and mortar non alcoholic bottle shop in Freshwater on the Northern Beaches in 2021 before expanding to Westfield Warringah this year. However, indications the company was in trouble emerged as it let its lease expire and terminated casual staff contracts last month.

Sans Drinks was placed into administration on July 17 according to ASIC, however founder Irene Falcone says the business was not collapsing, but rather was undergoing a “simple restructuring”.

“Foot traffic just isn’t there to sustain bricks and mortar (stores) in this economic climate,” she told 7News.

While the company will be closing up shop with its bricks and mortar operations, it will remain trading online only with a “more refined selection of drinks that are not available in supermarkets”, according to Falcone.

Insolvency firm Jirsch Sutherland has been appointed as administrator for the duration of the restructure.

The news comes as “Dry July” comes to an end, a time which Falcone said previously saw the store selling “ten times the regular revenue”.

The non-alcoholic beverage market is still thriving in Australia as more drinkers opt to get on the wagon. A Finder report from January found that 400,000 people planned to stop drinking in 2023, with estimates that the average Aussie drinker could save over $1,971 a year by abstaining from alcohol – or roughly $38 a week.

Alcohol drinkers may be making the shift over to “sober curious” as a necessity as Australia’s tax on spirits is set to tip over the $100 per litre mark for the first time, a threshold it was set to meet not until 2029. Distillers and brewers across the country have expressed their concern over the “unsustainable” increases and fear the costs will be inevitably passed on to the consumer.

Australian Distillers Association chief executive Paul McLeay said “if the government is serious about building a broader, deeper industrial base and the creation of manufacturing jobs in the regions, it must reconsider this punitive excise regime that disincentivises producers to invest in and grow their businesses.”

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