Juice-maker Charlie's shares rose almost 30% yesterday, after the company announced its products would be stocked by supermarket giant Woolworths across six Australian states.
For the first six months of the past year, Charlie's stock traded near 10c per share, then steadily increased through to 22c, before gaining 6c yesterday, to trade up to 28c.
The stock closed at 26c.
Charlie's Group chief executive Stefan Lepionka said the company now had a "big foot" in the Australian market and the deal "will undoubtedly make our Australian business bigger than New Zealand".
The full range of Charlie's products, marketed as `not made from concentrate' or organic, was due to go on sale in August and its popular Charlie's Old Fashioned Lemonade Quencher range was "likely" to make up about 70% of the total volume of Australian sales, Mr Lepionka said in a market statement yesterday.
Australia accounted for 37% of revenue before yesterday's announcement.
In the half-year trading to December, released last month, Charlie's reported a 29% increase in sales revenue from $16.8 million the previous year to $21.9 million and a 56% gain in after tax profit, riding from $700,000 to $1.1 million.
Forsyth Barr broker Peter Young said Charlie's had "delivered a raft of good news" in recent months, including placement in Australian supermarket Coles, entry to Hong Kong and an improvement of more than 50% in its half-year after-tax profits.
"They're doing very well, getting products into big distributors all around Australasia," Mr Young said.
Craigs Investment Partners broker Peter McIntyre said while Charlie's had been "stagnant" following its start-up, it was now gaining traction, such as its entry into 750 Coles outlets in Australia last year.
"The key for them is the distribution of products," Mr McIntyre said.
Charlie's was floated on the New Zealand stock exchange in July 2005.
It also exports to Asian territories, the Pacific, Middle East and Indian sub-continent.
