One year on from the launch of its $3 billion multi-beverage business, Suntory Oceania is now the number two player in Australian RTDs. New Suntory Global Spirits Oceania managing director, Ashish Gandham, talks to Food & Drink Business about what comes next.
Suntory Oceania marks a year of operations in Australia this month, and the numbers behind that first 12 months point to a business that has moved quickly from build to scale. The company has launched 21 new products, lifted production by 36 per cent in 2025, and established itself as the number two player in the Australian ready-to-drink (RTD) category, all while reducing its scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions.
managing director, Ashish Gandham.
The anniversary lands just months into the tenure of Ashish Gandham, who took the role of managing director, Suntory Global Spirits Oceania, earlier this year. He succeeded Mark Hill and works alongside Suntory Beverage & Food Oceania CEO, Dai Minato, leading the business that brought together Frucor Suntory and Beam Suntory under a single Oceania banner in July 2025.
Just nine weeks into life in Sydney, Gandham said he was still learning the market but was clear on the scale of the opportunity.
“The last year has been about building the foundations for the Suntory business here, onboarding a team, making sure the internal systems and processes are right,” he said.
“But it’s more than holding course. It’s about getting clear on what our vision is, what our ambition in this market is, and to deliver the ambition of being one of the most dynamic and fast-growing companies in the Oceania region.”
That build phase is underpinned by the company’s $400 million Swanbank facility outside Brisbane, unveiled at the Australian launch.
A market that defies the doom and gloom
Gandham arrives with more than two decades in FMCG, including senior roles at Diageo and most recently as MD of Suntory Global Spirits’ global travel retail business. That outsider’s vantage point has shaped his early read on Australia, which he described as a “big small market” that is more dynamic than its reputation suggests.
“It is ultra-competitive. The growth is not as easy to find, but from a fresh pair of eyes, it is an ultra-dynamic market,” he said.
The consumer base is diversifying, he said, and the shift towards RTDs over the past three to four years has been unusually fast.
“Markets like Australia, I see this shift happen over some time, but it’s been a fast-paced shift towards ready-to-drinks.”
Most striking to him is the resilience of the on-premise.
“Even within all the cost-of-living crises that we are seeing and price pressures our consumers are facing every day, I still see on-trade is thriving,” he said.
“If I look at the UK, or Europe, or even Singapore, as soon as there’s a cost-of-living crisis, the first thing that goes down is on-trade. That’s not what we’re seeing here.”
He puts that down to culture rather than habit. “The lifestyle, the community factor is so strong in this market. People love to go out, spend time with their mates, have at least one drink in the evening,” he said.
“The drink that accompanies is a vehicle of conversation. People in Australia are not drinking for the sake of drinking, it’s part of the culture.”
The younger, more deliberate drinker
Gandham pushed back on the common framing that younger consumers are simply drinking less.
“We sometimes broad-brush saying they are health conscious, they’re going out less. But no, they are quite deliberate. When they choose to go out, they want a more craft drink, a more experiential drink like a cocktail, rather than just whiskey and soda.”
It is a shift the company frames through a Japanese concept Gandham said sits at the centre of its strategy, seikatsusha, which loosely means looking at consumers as whole people rather than data points. “Go beyond data to insights, but go beyond insights into the why,” he said.
Three pillars, and a Japanese moment
Gandham said the strategy for the next phase rests on three pillars. The first is high-end whiskey.
“We are seeing whiskey consumption and high-end whiskey consumption, green shoots behind those, and we haven’t traditionally focused on that in this market enough,” he said, pointing to the House of Suntory range, Yamazaki, Hakushu and Hibiki, and partnerships with whiskey clubs and a stepped-up advocacy program.
The second is refreshment and the on-premise, built around Japanese serves.
“The number one travel destination for Australians is Japan right now,” he said. “Japan’s having a moment. There is a cultural aspect people are fascinated by, the craftsmanship, the attention to detail.”
As the self-described founding house of Japanese whiskey, he said, Suntory has an opportunity to bring more of its Japanese portfolio, highball serves and cocktail culture to Australian bars.
The third pillar is RTDs, where the company is already ranked second nationally.
He said the coming year would see investment accelerate across both the company’s own team and its trade partnerships. “Getting clear on the strategy, including what kind of investments in upskilling our own team and engagement with our trade partners will be accelerated over the course of the next one year.”
One consumer, two businesses
Underpinning the strategy is a conviction, shared from the top of the family-owned parent, that Suntory’s alcohol and non-alcohol arms should operate as one. Gandham recounted a recent visit to the Swanbank floor by a member of the founding family, who told him the Oceania market could set the tone for how Suntory’s businesses work together globally.
“Sometimes we draw these walls around the non-alcohol business and the alcohol business, and that the two consumers are different,” Gandham said.
“But he sees this as super synergy, because at the end of the day it’s the same consumer. We just consume different products at different points in time. If we can look at our consumer end to end, we will unlock far bigger, far better insights than just sitting in a meeting room looking at data.”
Water sits at the centre of that shared purpose, and of Suntory’s Growing for Good platform. “Water has been at the heart of everything that we do in Suntory, because it is essential,” Gandham said. The company has committed $1 million to a three-year water research partnership with Griffith University’s Australian Rivers Institute and has set targets to cut water use per unit of production by 35 per cent by 2030.
Asked to leave a single thought on the year ahead, Gandham returned to the consumer.
“We have a massive ambition in this market, but we want to deliver that ambition of being one of the fastest growing, one of the most dynamic companies, by really getting close to the consumer.
“Getting close to our customers, our trade partners, working with them collaboratively. And then continuing the work we are extremely passionate about around the communities and the impact we have on nature in Australia and New Zealand.”
