The beverage import industry, covered.
Industry trends, partnership announcements, market data, and perspectives from RTM's years building brands in the US wholesale channel.
How Soju Earned Chain Retail Authorization in the US Market
How soju moved from specialty grocery to national chain shelves, and what the authorization record means for distributors evaluating the category.
Building a Private Label Beverage Brand: Why Leading Retailers Are Doing It Now
Private label in beverage alcohol has crossed a threshold. What was once a secondary strategy for category managers looking to fill shelf gaps has become a primary commercial objective for the most sophisticated retailers and hospitality operators in the U.S. market.
From Brief to Shelf: How RTM's Custom Label Process Works
Building a proprietary beverage brand is one of the most commercially effective strategies available to U.S. retailers, hospitality groups, and restaurant chains. A well-executed custom label program delivers margin control, shelf differentiation, and the kind of consumer relationship that branded resale cannot replicate.
Wine-Based Soju: The Regulatory Distinction That Opens Every Channel
Soju is the best-selling spirit by volume in the world. In the United States, it is also one of the categories with the strongest growth trajectory in the wholesale channel, outpacing overall spirits category performance at a time when total spirits volumes are declining.
The Three-Tier System Explained: What Every Foreign Producer Needs to Know
The United States is the largest beverage alcohol market in the world. It is also one of the most structurally complex. Foreign producers who approach U.S. market entry without understanding the three-tier distribution system will encounter delays, compliance failures, and commercial dead ends that a well-prepared entrant avoids entirely.
How RTM Identifies a Category Before the Market Does
RTM Imports has a track record of entering beverage alcohol categories before they reach mainstream distribution. That track record is not the result of instinct alone. It is the product of a rigorous research process, one that combines multiple sources of market signal most importers do not use together, and a willingness to act on what that data shows before consensus forms.
What U.S. Wholesale Consolidation Means for Specialist Importers
The U.S. alcohol wholesale landscape is changing at a pace that would have been difficult to predict a decade ago. Major distributors are exiting markets, rationalizing their portfolios, and narrowing their commercial focus to the highest-volume brands in their books. For large generalist importers, this is a structural threat. For focused, independent specialists, it is something else entirely.
America's Specialist Beverage Importer: What RTM Does and Why It Matters
Most businesses in the U.S. beverage alcohol supply chain do one thing. They make product, or they distribute it, or they sell it at retail. RTM Imports occupies a different position: the importer layer that connects producers in international markets to the U.S. wholesale channel.
U.S. Soju Market Surpasses $935M — And RTM Has Been Here Since the Beginning
The U.S. soju market more than doubled in five years, reaching approximately $935 million in 2024. Driven by Gen Z demand and the global momentum of K-culture, soju is no longer a niche — it's a mainstream category. RTM has operated in this space for over 30 years.