Interview: Winesellers Ltd Enters Hemp THC Category
October 7, 2025Last week, Shanken News Daily reported that Illinois-based importer Winesellers Ltd. was expanding into the hemp THC category with a new line of infused teas under the Nektr brand. Nektr’s teas come in four-packs of 12-ounce cans with DTC pricing at $24 a four-pack. The brand is launching with three flavors—Peach + Ginger, Blackberry + Sage, and Yuzu + Honey—all made with a blend of black and decaffeinated green teas, 5mg of hemp-derived THC, and organic agave nectar. The company is aiming for sales of 30,000 cases in the first year. SNDC senior editor Shane English spoke with Winesellers Ltd co-president Jordan Sager on the company’s bold foray into the growing hemp THC market.
SND: What made hemp THC an appealing category for you?
Sager: We are seeing significant demographic shifts establishing in the market with reduced alcohol consumption and growth of functional beverages, including THC. Hemp-derived THC (Delta-9) beverage is one of the fastest growing consumer product categories in the U.S. today.
SND: Can you walk us through the product development cycle?
Sager: In January 2025, we started the branding and design development, then beverage formulations, production partnerships, marketing strategy, and finally were ready to launch this month. Winesellers has a good deal of experience developing and building our own brands, and a history of entering emerging categories. This is the first outside of the alcohol beverage space, but one that has synergies with our model as it’s being sold through three-tier beverage alcohol networks and retailers.
SND: Why is iced tea the best format?
Sager: There are already a number of brands that have entered the market and a significant majority of them are seltzers. It was our belief that we needed to differentiate ourselves and offer a product that consumers were missing. In addition, we are very aware of major hard tea players like Surfside and Sun Cruiser, which have seen significant growth of late.
SND: How will the retail rollout progress?
Sager: We will be initiating campaigns now to utilize social platforms in digital marketing, influencer collaborations, and paid and organic outreach to consumers. We have brought on two marketing agencies to guide us through this process.
On the three-tier side, we will leverage our strong relationships within our distribution network, deploying our 22 national and regional sales professionals in the market every day, and partnerships with wholesale and retail. We will be aggressive with demos, activations, and event sponsorships to build awareness. Some examples of retail partners already lined up are Buy Rite and Wine Merchants in New Jersey and Sal’s Beverage World in Illinois.
We prefer to build this brand strategically, and spend our efforts going deep rather than wide. If we enter a market, we believe we need to fully develop that market and not be distracted by spreading ourselves too thin. In addition, the hemp-derived regulatory landscape is quite complicated right now. We see plenty of regulation and compliance in alcohol beverage, but from a production, packaging, and labeling perspective, the states follow federal guidelines. With hemp, every state has its own sets of rules and regulations regarding what can be sold and how it must be packaged. We prefer to take a slower and smarter approach when it comes to entering new markets to develop the right strategies for success.
SND: Do you have a case projection for year one?
Sager: We are targeting to be a little over 30,000 cases sold in year one.
SND: How does your experience in wine inform your decision-making in hemp THC?
Sager: I would say two things on this—one, the highly complex regulatory and compliance landscape in THC beverage is easier to navigate coming from a national wine importing and marketing background. We deal with state compliance on a regular basis and are comfortable managing it.
Second, we have significant experience creating and developing brands targeted towards new adult consumers of legal drinking age. For many years the wine industry has been focused on establishing a foothold with younger adults coming of age, and we are eager to take these learnings and apply them in this new category.
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