Sprite — Wholesale Supply

The second question every experienced importer asks about Sprite is about dating, and the answer separates suppliers faster than anything else on the offer. A clear carbonate that rotates steadily rather than spectacularly needs enough remaining life to survive a sea leg, a clearance and a slow first month in a new market. Iguazu Trading exports genuine EU-produced Sprite in the manufacturer's sealed packaging from Madrid, worldwide, as part of the beverage range loaded out of our warehouse, and this page starts where the buyer's risk actually sits.

Dating is stated, not promised

There are two ways a supplier can answer a question about shelf life. One is to quote a blanket figure that applies to everything they sell, which is comfortable to read and worth nothing, because it is a description of the product rather than of the stock in front of them. The other is to state the batch and the best-before marking of the specific allocation being offered, in writing, at quotation, and then ship exactly that.

We work the second way. You will not find a shelf-life figure anywhere on this page, because we do not have one that would be true of every consignment. What you get instead is the dating of the lot on offer, before you commit, so you can measure it against your own rotation policy and your own transit. If the remaining life on a lot does not suit a long routing into a market you are still building, say so at enquiry and we will look at what else is open rather than let you find out on arrival.

Cans and PET do not age the same way

Both formats are stable when they are stored properly, and neither is fragile in normal trade. The differences are worth knowing anyway, because they change how you should hold stock rather than whether you should buy it.

Aluminium is opaque and rigid, so cans are indifferent to light and tolerant of stacking, and their vulnerability is mechanical: dented ends and scuffed sleeves from rough handling or a loose wrap. PET is lighter and more forgiving of a knock, but it is a plastic and it is not perfectly indifferent to what surrounds it, so warm storage, prolonged direct sun and a hot warehouse roof are the conditions to plan against. In practice this means the same consignment can be in perfect condition and still look tired if it has spent weeks in an uncovered yard at destination. The load leaves here wrapped, strapped and built to arrive intact; how it is held after clearance is the part that most often determines what your customer sees.

Where this line sits in a load

Very few buyers book a container of this line alone, and they should not. It is the facing for the customer who has walked past both the cola and the orange, which makes it a completing line rather than a driving one. Ranged next to Coca-Cola and an orange line, it completes the flavour spread; ranged on its own, it carries a container that is mostly waiting for the rest of the shelf to arrive.

No universal split exists between cola, orange and lemon-lime, and a supplier who offers one is describing their own stock position rather than your shelf. We will instead price two or three different compositions of the same container, so the comparison sits in front of you before you choose, and then fix the chosen split in the offer so that what sails is what you modelled.

Pallet build: single-variant or mixed

A single-variant pallet is the easiest thing to take in. It counts quickly, it can go straight out to a customer without being opened, and it reads unambiguously on a packing list — the right build for a distributor moving whole pallets on to their own accounts. The mixed build is for the buyer who breaks bulk in-house, since it lets several lines travel without each one claiming a full position.

Where a pallet is mixed, we build it as whole layers of one line stacked on a single base rather than cases intermingled through the stack, and every pallet is itemised on the packing list so that nobody has to cut wrap to find out what is inside. Cases per layer, layers per pallet and positions per 20ft or 40ft go into the offer against whatever is allocated, rather than onto this page, because they move with format and production run. Bear in mind that beverages are weight-limited cargo: the payload ceiling arrives before the cube runs out, which is why so many of our beverage containers are mixed with a lighter category above the drinks.

Loading, terms and documents

Stock ships from our Madrid warehouse, inland, roughly a day's road haul from Valencia at around 355 km and Barcelona at around 620 km. Algeciras is the transhipment alternative and Coslada the rail option. Whether one gateway suits your routing better than the other is a real question rather than a formality, and our comparison of Valencia against Barcelona for FMCG exports sets out how we weigh it.

We trade EXW Madrid, which is our premises and not a port, along with FOB, CFR, CIF and DAP under Incoterms 2020. DDP is not offered as standard. Every export shipment carries a commercial invoice, packing list, export declaration and transport document, a Certificate of Origin, and a EUR.1 movement certificate where a preferential agreement between the EU and the destination applies, with batch and best-before information recorded on the paperwork. Goods are EU-produced and supplied in the manufacturer's own sealed packaging, never re-boxed or relabelled. We are an independent distributor with no brand appointment of any kind, selling to trade buyers only, and listed brands are quoted within one business day.