Most drinks businesses will set their 2027 revenue targets in the next eight to 12 weeks depending on their financial year end. Whether they hit them depends less on the number in the budget than on whether the stock, the working capital and the routes to market behind that number are in place well before the year even starts.
Unforgiving timelines
The drinks calendar is unforgiving. Easter 2027 will fall on March 28th, so Easter brand plans are being negotiated now and signed off in November, with orders placed in December. Summer ranges for gin, tequila and RTDs are agreed by December and stocked from January. Southern Hemisphere wineries begin vintage in February. UK supermarkets will have finished their Christmas 2027 brand plans by June. By the time most teams feel the pressure of a target, the decisions that determine whether or not they will be successful in hitting it, have already been made.
And the cash flow and working capital cycles rarely line up with the plan. Producers pay for bulk liquid, grapes, glass, bottling, freight and duty between June and November, but retailers typically pay on 60 to 90 day terms, often not until January to March the following year. That gap of six to eight months is where growth plans quietly stall: a listing that can't be filled, a promotion that can't be funded, a new market that waits another year to enter.
Here is a look at what drinks companies should be doing now, across funding, operational efficiency and trading, to ensure next year is a success. It then looks at how each applies to spirits, wine, RTDs and functional drinks and why the conversation is worth having before January rather than after.
The 2027 picture: flatter demand, tighter cash, less room for error
The brands that grow in 2027 will be the ones that convert the demand that exists, not the ones waiting for the market to lift them. The headline numbers are with a focus on steadying demand, rather than trying to recover declines.
- Spirits: US wholesalers expect core spirits depletions to keep improving into 2027, though more slowly, easing from around -4.2% in early 2026 to about -3.7% by mid-2027, according to a recent forecast from WSWA shared via Vinetur. Whisky and Scotch are expected to firm first; tequila is stabilising after a sharp slowdown.
- Wine: US wine sales fell again in 2025 and are forecasted to decline in 2026 at a slower rate, with oversupply described as a structural headwind according to the most recent Silicon Valley Bank’s State of the US Wine Industry 2026 report. In Australia, some Riverland Shiraz for the 2026 vintage was priced well below the cost of growing it (Vinetur).
- RTDs. Spirit-based RTDs have been one of the few clear growth stories, and the UK category is shifting towards premium, bar-quality serves. Spirits Business recently reported the RTD category surpassed US$4 billion In the US .
- Functional and no/low. Functional RTDs and moderation-led brands are using the UK as a launch market, with new entrants arriving through specialist distributors (Food & Drink Technology).
Across all four categories, the same pattern holds – buyers are ranging more carefully, so every listing has to earn its place. Distributors and retailers are carrying less stock, which pushes inventory and its cost back up the value chain onto brands. Tariffs, duty or tax changes and coupled with freight costs can move a margin in a single announcement. No matter the market, the advantage goes to businesses with the working capital to commit early, the operations to deliver reliably and to those that have access to the routes to market to sell where demand is actually growing.
Working capital: make sure the plan is paid for before it is promised
Every 2027 target rests on a cash commitment made months earlier. Christmas plans are agreed in June, but the stock behind them is paid for between June and November and the retailer pays in January to March the following year. Cask, glass and gift-pack orders need deposits four to six months ahead. A winery buying a new press for harvest needs the money seven or eight months before it picks a grape.
What to do now:
- Map 2027 cash against the trading calendar, not the financial year. Identify the months where stock, duty or taxes and receivables peak together. For most brands that means the pinch starts to be felt as early as June and is really felt in September to November; for Southern Hemisphere wineries it is February to April.
- Price the gap, then decide how to fill it. Overdrafts and bank lines are often capped well below the value of the stock a business holds. Equity is expensive for a working-capital problem.
- Have potential funding and working capital solutions well developed before the buyer conversation, not after. A brand that knows it can fund 30% more volume negotiates a different Christmas plan from one that is guessing.
Operational efficiency: take cost and friction out of the supply chain
In a flat market, margin can be won in the supply chain. Glass lead times of three to six months, deep-sea transit of four to eight weeks, bonded storage, duty and tax payments and fragmented logistics all add cost and delay, and most drinks businesses manage them across a patchwork of suppliers, service providers and spreadsheets.
What to do now:
- Plan duty and taxes, not just stock. Duty becomes payable when stock leaves the bond, so Christmas duty bills land in October to December, before retailers pay. The UK duty increases that come into effect (1 February in recent years) also shapes when stock should be released.
- Consolidate the moving parts. Every hand-off between producer, warehouse, freight forwarder and distributor is a cost and a point where stock and cash data drift apart.
- Buy once, at better terms. Businesses that can pay suppliers up front can negotiate annual volumes and better pricing instead of buying in smaller, costlier batches.
- Complexity: The more businesses scale and look to international markets, finding another partner in a new market means increasing complexity. More paperwork, more systems, more manual work, more legal requirements, more insurance needs and more volatility across foreign exchange rates. All increase complexity and slow expansion down.
Trading: sell more, in more places, on terms that work
Growth in 2027 will be uneven by category and by market, so the ability to move stock to where demand is will matter more than ever. That means winning listings, filling them reliably, and entering new markets without carrying all the risk alone.
What to do now:
- Decide which listings to fight for, and what stock each needs. Wholesalers lock lists twice a year, and winning a listing means stocking their depots before demand arrives.
- Make your terms an advantage. Retailers and distributors want to hold less stock. A brand that can hold inventory close to its customers, or offer more flexible terms, becomes easier to buy from.
- Plan market entry around the buying cycle. Trade fairs are timed to buying decisions, and travel retail commits to exclusive packs and formats months before the season.
What this means category by category
Spirits
Brown spirits carry the heaviest balance sheet in drinks: new-make filled today may not be sold for three to twenty years, and most of the year's revenue is bottled in June to August and paid for months later. White spirits move faster but have two cash troughs a year, building for summer in February to March and for Christmas from June.
- Funding: finance against maturing stock and casks all year, plus bottling, gift-pack and duty bridging for Christmas, Chinese New Year and Diwali.
- Operations: cask and packaging deposits, bonded storage and duty release timed around the 1 February duty rate increases coming into effect.
- Trading: Established export routes into the US, Ireland, EU, Australia, Asia and travel retail, where tariff shifts can change a plan at short notice.
Wine
Wine faces oversupply and soft demand, so 2027 winners will be producers and importers who protect margin and sell through reliably. Northern Hemisphere wineries need harvest capex funded by February or March; Southern Hemisphere producers face their biggest cash trough from vintage in February through export shipping in September.
- Funding: grape and grower payments, winery capex, bottling and dry goods, and en primeur cash lock-ups for merchants.
- Operations: glass and dry-goods lead times of three to six months, and deep-sea freight timed to land for Christmas.
- Trading: buying bulk and finished wine at the right price in an oversupplied market, and holding stock close to UK and US buyers.
RTDs
RTDs are one of the few growth categories, but growth is capital-hungry. Summer is the peak, range reviews decide the year before and ranges for summer 2027 are being agreed now.
- Funding: cans, liquid and co-packer runs ahead of summer listings, often in volumes well beyond last year's.
- Operations: short production windows and high-volume, low-value stock that is costly to store and move.
- Trading: securing and filling multiple-grocer orders, having the integrations and supplier codes for those listings up and running, and wholesale listings, and launching new flavours into review windows.
Functional and no/low drinks
Functional brands are scaling quickly from a small base, which makes cash the main constraint on growth. Many are entering new markets through distributors and need to fund stock long before the first reorder.
- Funding: first production runs, launch stock for new listings and the gap until distributors and retailers pay.
- Operations: shorter shelf lives make stock planning and delivery reliability critical.
- Trading: a route into the UK, US, Ireland, the Netherlands and Australia without carrying the full inventory risk of each market alone.
Why the conversation should start now
The best time to put the operating system needed for drinks companies, with the core components being trading and working capital efficiency, in place is one to three months before the cash is needed, or the product needs to move, because that is when the commercial decision is made. For 2027, that window has already opened.
A business that waits until it feels the squeeze in March will be negotiating its Christmas plan without knowing whether it can fund it. A business that starts now goes into every buyer meeting of 2027 knowing what it can deliver.
Setting your 2027 targets now? Talk to Fero about how funding, operational and trading efficiency can mean better return on capital, leaner operations, stronger margins that should underpin your plan before the year starts. Book a call with our growth experts.
We will be hosting a roundtable for CFOs, MDs, CEOs, founders on the 2 December where we will cover several options leaders should be considering right now ahead of 2027. If you are interested in attending please register your interest here.
Sources
- WSWA forecast sees US spirits sales declining through 2027, Vinetur
- The state of the US wine industry in 2026, Silicon Valley Bank/ First Citizen Bank
- Australia's wine glut squeezes growers, Vinetur
- Noot enters UK to capture functional RTD momentum, Food & Drink Technology
- Fero, The Buyer
- Fero surpasses US$1 billion in inventory, The Drinks Business
- Fero and Bevica link-up, The Drinks Business
