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Strategy

Lifetime Brands Acquires S’well Bottle

Phoenix-based Zing Manufacturing is the exclusive supplier of the retail brand to the promo industry.

Garden City, NY-based Lifetime Brands, the global parent company of a number of retail houseware brands including Farberware, KitchenAid and the Sabatier line of cutlery, has acquired the business and certain assets of Can’t Live Without It, dba S’well Bottle.

Financial details of the acquisition were not released, though Lifetime Brands expects the purchase to bring in an additional $4.5 million in annualized EBITDA once the integration of S’well is complete in Q2 of this year.

S’well, founded in 2010 by Sarah Kauss, is a designer, wholesaler and retailer of vacuum-insulated, stainless-steel drinkware and food storage containers. Zing Manufacturing (asi/99025) in Phoenix became the exclusive supplier of S’well drinkware to the promo industry in January 2021.

Swell salad bowl

The 64-ounce salad bowl kit (Z14964-B21-82720) has a leakproof lid, removable tray for utensils and closable condiment container. It’s one of the newest products in the S’well by Zing line.

“We are extremely pleased to welcome the S’well brand to our portfolio,” said Rob Kay, CEO of Lifetime Brands. “S’well originated the category of sustainable hydration products and has consistently been a design, feature and product innovator. The brand is a perfect fit for our growing and successful hydration and storage categories.”

Kay also cited S’well’s strong e-commerce capabilities and corporate partnership business as “a new and attractive channel,” adding that S’well’s mission of sustainability matches Lifetime’s own. “We expect this highly complementary addition to our portfolio to have an accretive impact on our earnings beginning in 2022,” he said.

Kauss will oversee the transition and continue on with Lifetime in an advisory role for the S’well brand. “I’m so proud of what S’well has accomplished over the years,” she said. “We created a movement around reusables, helped displace more than 4 billion single-use plastic bottles and touched millions of lives. With this transition into the Lifetime family, the S’well brand will continue to deliver beautiful, innovative products while being a force for good.”

Rich Corvalan, senior vice president of Zing Manufacturing, says Lifetime is eager to continue growing S’well’s presence in the wholesale industry, as demonstrated by a recent three-year contract extension. “Our relationship with S’well and Lifetime is only going to get stronger,” he said. “The new owners are enthralled with the promo market and they want to expand their presence through us.”

Last month, Corvalan joined the Promo Insiders podcast to talk about the S’well partnership and his company’s big year in 2021. “[Industry reaction to S’well] has been amazing,” he said, adding that Zing is focusing on low minimums, fast turns, quality decoration and healthy margins for distributors. “They’ve done a great job, through us, in really focusing on the promotional products industry.”

The company recently unveiled S’well products now available to the promo marketplace, including the 64-ounce salad bowl kit with dressing container and dry goods metal tin, as well as dog bowls in 16-ounce and 32-ounce sizes with a non-slip bottom.