Last week at the Australian Drinks Awards, Lion was crowned Australia’s Supplier of the Year for the first time in six years, clinching the title from 2023 and 2024 winner Carlton & United Breweries.
In addition to this, Lion also won the 2025 Category Management Award for the first time.
To learn more about Lion’s recent wins and its current momentum, Drinks Trade sat down with joint business leads James Brindley and Anubha Sahasrabuddhe.
Drinks Trade: Congratulations on becoming Australia’s Supplier of the Year for 2025. Did it come as a surprise?
Anubha Sahasarbuddhe: For the last three to four years, we have genuinely had a humility about just doing the work and making sure that we are showing up to our consumers and customers the way we want to. By keeping people grounded in that mindset, you want them to believe that the results will follow. At the end of the day, you’ve got to grow the category and grow the industry.
We had talked about the fact that, if we don’t [win], we know we keep making the right progress the right way, but the joy was real.
James Brindley: It’s pretty special. For a long time Lion was usually in the top three, and then for a few years we dropped down the ladder a fair way. We only missed by a point last year, so there was some optimistic expectation we might go one better in 2025.
What’s even more significant about the win is that we were rated number one for vision and number one for category management. We have never been in the top echelon for those two things, and I think vision and category management are the fundamental inputs to growth for customers. We’ve been good at execution, good at supply chain, good at partnering, good at keeping commitments, but we have never won nor even been close to number one for vision and category management, so that is what makes it really special.
DT: Has Lion done anything differently over the past year to contribute to this result?
James Brindley: I don’t think there is fundamentally anything new, it just a more a consistent focus. Since Anubha and I came together as joint leaders, we have tried to increase the pace on things, for example, getting back to a customer quickly. That doesn’t mean you say yes, it just means you say yes or no, and you can move on.
The reorganisation a few years prior to that took a lot of internal focus and effort. With a renewed external focus, we begin with the end in mind, focus on what the customer needs and try and deliver on that.
Anubha Sahasarbuddhe: I think the never settling attitude has been a change: we feel obviously really proud and great about the team’s efforts to get us to this place, but complacency is the enemy. Already what’s awesome is the team is starting to look into the results and thinking, there’s plenty to keep doing, and I think that’s a very different mindset shift from before in terms of just being able to recognise that when you raise the bar, everyone rises with that.
That’s really motivating for our people and their development and their ability to never settle for anything less than great.
DT: Lion ranked first for Vision in the Advantage Group Survey for the first time this year. What has helped achieve this?
Anubha Sahasarbuddhe: We’ve had a very clear vision the last couple of years. In terms of upping the ante on that vision is probably a level of accountability for our people to actually make that vision real for customers. It’s one thing to have an internal vision about being growth orientated and consumer obsessed, but to be able to translate our Lion vision into something meaningful for each and every one of our customers is where the rubber hits the road.
Because we can have nice words internally, but our invitation to our people to make sure that it’s really understood and meaningful for our customers, not just self-serving, I think is probably a shift.
James Brindley: I think Anubha has brought this vision into Lion when she first joined four years ago. But four years ago, we were in a different place, and it takes time for the vision to become embedded.
Every internal presentation we do, we have a vision page on it. And to be honest, the vision is not probably too dissimilar to other companies, but it’s all about your belief in that vision and your drive to execute it.
DT: Can you explain what belief means to Lion and how a strong workplace culture has contributed to your Supplier of the Year recognition?
Anubha Sahasarbuddhe: Belief is something that over the last 18 months has gone up a notch, and I think part of it is just the patience of leadership to lead people to believe. But we had small wins along the way, and as James said, last year we were second.
Belief is the best catalyst for making sure that we do what we say we’re going to do, and I think that’s really propelling our people. That has a really positive ripple effect across our partners and that is a good thing.
One thing which is probably unique and internal to us was that we were also recognised for having more internal cohesion. It’s very easy to say, let’s show up as one, but to have that called out is a real testament to our leaders for driving that one team and one demand approach so that we are pointed in the same direction. And that’s been a journey as well.
DT: Lion didn’t win a single Brand Award at this year’s ADA, but was a close second in several categories. What did you make of this?
James Brindley: Well, it was surprising and disappointing to us not to feature moreso in the brand awards. Well done to CUB though, a great result for them. Having said that, if you look at the performance of Four Pillars, Kirin Hyoketsu, Hahn SuperDry, Hahn 3.5, Stone & Wood and Guinness, for example, we are pretty happy with their performance and adding to category growth.
Anubha Sahasarbuddhe: We just want to focus our people on in-market results and showing the Australian market that our brands are the growth brands now and for the future.
DT: How are you planning on continuing, and building upon, this momentum over the coming year?
Anubha Sahasarbuddhe: We don’t want to lose that momentum because we are in a challenging industry and everyone’s trying to do the right thing in terms of getting growth. But I think you’ve got to feel the feels as well as do the hard work because it’s not easy.
We’ve got to keep those things we think we’re doing well, and then you’ve got to work out a detailed change plan on where we’re going to focus. And it may only be in one area in a customer. So, how do we then engage the customer and figure out a change plan so we can fix those bits and pieces which we’re not very good at?
[Over] the next two weeks, each of the customer directors and cross-functional teams are going to deeply dive into each of the customers and channels and then come up with the action plan so that, in our joint business planning, we can reflect those actions.
James Brindley: After this weekand under Kerry’s leadership, we are back to day one and will focus on all those things … Kerry’s already analysing the areas where we didn’t do well, which customers we didn’t go well with and working on maintaining what we’ve got but building what we haven’t got.
DT: Finally, what does this award represent for Lion?
James Brindley: The award symbolises the things that really matter: which is how do you be a good and trusted supplier or business partner. So the award’s great, but it’s recognition of the things we do underneath.
It’s also very healthy and interesting that second, third and fourth were wine businesses, and historically they’ve all been down the bottom. So given their difficulty in their category, good to see them raising the bar.
Anubha Sahasarbuddhe: We appreciate this annual deep dive into what we’re doing well and what we’re not, because it’s easy to get into your own mode, and this really provides us with a very broad perspective on our capabilities end to end. It’s not just the sales & commercial teams, it’s the marketing, the innovation, the supply chain. All of those functions partner to get these results.
It’s really important that the whole organisation understands their role in being able to generate that result and that is what feels so great for all of us at Lion.