Carlton & United Breweries has been named one of Australia’s most innovative companies for the second straight year.

The AFR BOSS Most Innovative Companies List 2020 last week acknowledged CUB for developing and bringing to market the Lexington Hill Cocktail Club, which has sold more than 2.2 million cocktails since it launched.

CUB was again named the fourth most innovative manufacturing and consumer goods company in Australia and was the highest-ranked major beverages company on the list.

CUB’s Director, Insights & Innovation, Adam Murphy said: “Lexington Hill on-tap cocktails offer consumers in venues a high-quality and consistent drink prepared much quicker than it takes to
make regular cocktails. This helps reduce long queues while giving cocktail lovers an affordable, delicious and more consistent espresso martini, margarita or sangria.

“CUB drew on its 100-plus years of giving consumers the freshest and best draught experience when developing Lexington Hill. We’re thrilled this innovation to reduce barriers and allow new consumers to explore the cocktail culture has been recognised by the judges.”

Lexington Hill also includes a takeaway bottled range. This award follows last year’s AFR BOSS Most Innovative Companies recognition for Carlton Zero, which helped revolutionise the Australian nonalc beer market. Mr Murphy said the ongoing recognition underlines CUB’s commitment to innovation to win in the market.

“Innovation is a way for CUB to grow our business and several years ago we committed to embracing it at all levels of the company, which led to our “Ideas from Anywhere innovation platform,” he said.

“We also recently held our inaugural “InnoWeek”, with people from across the business invited to attend including scientists, marketers and procurement specialists. More than 1,400 ideas emerged from those sessions, some of which will soon come to market.

“CUB has a successful recent track record of innovation but we’re just getting started.”