For European non-alcoholic and alcohol-free brands: one team for every step, from importer of record to your customer’s second order.
Most European founders entering America end up managing a customs broker, a warehouse, a Shopify agency, an Amazon agency, a wholesale rep, and an email agency, each waiting to be told what to do. We run all of it from one stock of bottles, and your brand, your data, and your equity stay yours. See how it fits together in the full US operation, or how a launch unfolds in our 90-day plan.
We are importer of record on every entry, holding the classification, duties, and bond, so you land your first pallet without a US company.
We handle FDA facility registration, the US agent role, Prior Notice, and label review, plus TTB where a malt base pulls the product back under it.
We choose and manage a US 3PL built for glass and heavy cases, with one stock serving DTC, Amazon, and wholesale.
We build and run your Shopify store and Amazon listings, from subscriptions to paid acquisition.
We introduce you to distributors and retail buyers, set your pricing and margins, then do the wholesale work that keeps a listing.
We run the email, SMS, and subscriptions that bring customers back, and the list and its data stay yours.
Every shipment into the US needs an importer of record with a US presence. For most European founders, that is the first question without an answer. We take the role. Your pallets clear customs under our name, and the classification, entry filing, duties, bond, and legal responsibility sit with the same people who will sell your bottles once they land. When customs has a question, we answer it.
In the US, the FDA regulates most drinks under 0.5% ABV as food, and a recipe or label that passes at home can still stop a shipment at a US port. We check your labels and settle the regulatory route before your bottles leave Europe, then handle food facility registration, FSVP, the US agent role, and Prior Notice before they land. If a product falls on the TTB side of the line, we tell you early and plan the route together.
A bottle for someone’s dinner, a case for a wine shop, and a pallet for a distributor all leave the same US warehouse, from one stock. We choose that warehouse and manage it every day: receiving, reorders, and returns. You can see where every bottle is.
Americans usually find a new drink online before they find it on a shelf, the reverse of how most European brands launch at home. We build and run your Shopify store, where you keep the margin and know every customer by name, and your Amazon store, where Americans already search. Both sell nationwide from launch day, from the same stock.
Shops keep the bottles that sell again. So we start with independent shops and restaurants on Faire and Airgoods, which together reach more than 100,000 of them, then open distribution city by city where reorders already show demand. We meet distributors with your reorder numbers in hand, and that is how a new brand keeps its place on a shelf. The full rollout is in our US wholesale and distribution approach.
We lead with your own store for the second order, and the tenth. We build the email, text, and subscription programs that bring customers back, and the reports that show what an American customer is worth over time. The list, the data, and the repeat revenue stay yours.
Under 0.5% alcohol, the FDA treats your wine as food. So in most states we can start selling from the first shipment: in your own online store, to the independent shops on Faire and Airgoods, to coffee shops and yoga studios that hold no alcohol licence, and on Amazon, which asks for its approval when a wine is above 0.0%. We sell on your behalf, at the prices you set. The store and the marketplace accounts are yours, and we run them. Where an order needs an invoice, Avenor issues it as merchant of record. Every order, every customer, and every reorder stays with you.
When a distributor comes in for the licensed bars, restaurants, and wine shops, we keep selling everywhere else, in step with the distributor’s prices.
| Topic | Your distributor | Avenor | You |
|---|---|---|---|
| Where the wine sells | Licensed bars, restaurants, wine shops, and chains | Your online store, Amazon, Faire, Airgoods, and shops with no alcohol licence, such as coffee shops and yoga studios | You choose the markets and the channels |
| How it sells | The distributor buys the wine and resells it | We sell on your behalf, through your own accounts, and Avenor invoices as merchant of record | You own the brand and every account |
| Prices | The distributor sets its own resale prices and terms with its accounts | We sell at your prices and keep them in step with the distributor’s | You set your prices |
| What you learn | Reports of the cases sold to retailers | Every direct order: who bought, where, and when they came back | The data is yours |
| When it starts | Once the wine has sales to show | From the first shipment |
Selling direct is how you learn who drinks your wine. An order in your own store arrives with a name, a city, and a date to watch for the next one. Faire and Airgoods show which shops buy and how often they come back. Amazon shows what sold and what people wrote about it. A distributor’s report shows the cases it sold to retailers.
In our experience, that record of direct orders is also the first thing a distributor asks to see.
In AvenorOS, every customer has one record, with their orders, the emails they opened, and what they browsed. You see every venue visit and when each account is due to reorder. Your data is yours.
Two ways into the US for an alcohol-free wine sets out both routes in full.
Every service above is documented in depth in our resource library, for founders deciding how to enter America.
A US market-entry partner runs the operation that turns a European non-alcoholic brand into a US business: acting as importer of record, clearing FDA and (where relevant) TTB compliance, holding inventory in a US 3PL, selling through DTC, Amazon and wholesale, and building the retention engine, all under one accountable team. For a European founder, it replaces a stack of separate US vendors, and the cost and delay of building a US subsidiary, with a single operator who owns the whole chain.
No. You do not need to incorporate a US entity to start selling. Because Avenor acts as your importer of record and US agent, your goods can clear customs and reach shelves without a US company of your own on the ground. Many European brands only stand up their own US entity later, once the operation is proven; the entry itself does not wait on it.
Most non-alcoholic and alcohol-free beverages fall under the FDA rather than the TTB, with the dividing line at 0.5% ABV. A drink at or below that threshold is generally an FDA food product, subject to FSVP, prior notice, food-facility registration and FDA labeling rules; above it, TTB oversight can apply. We confirm which regime your specific product sits under before it ships, so nothing is discovered at the port.
An importer gives you the fastest, lowest-control way into the US, and a distributor sells your brand alongside dozens of others. In both cases you hand over the margin, the customer relationship, and the data. Avenor runs the whole US operation on your behalf while the brand, the audience, and the equity stay yours. It is the third option between the easy way in and building a US team from scratch.
A planned launch runs from first US shipment to first repeat order in roughly 90 days, with compliance cleared before product moves and DTC, Amazon and digital wholesale opening national from day one. The exact timeline depends on your production and export readiness at origin. Our 90-day launch plan walks through the full sequence step by step.
Avenor works with premium non-alcoholic and alcohol-free beverage brands from France, the UK and Western Europe entering the US, across non-alcoholic wine, sparkling, spirits, beer, and functional categories. The common thread is a founder who wants to enter the US properly without surrendering the brand to an importer or absorbing the cost of a US team.
