Cizzle Brands Begins Distributing CWENCH Hydration™ to Metro Grocery Stores in Quebec

TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Mar 25, 2025--

Cizzle Brands Corporation (Cboe Canada: CZZL) (OTCQB: CZZLF) (Frankfurt: 8YF) ( the “Company” or “Cizzle Brands”), is pleased to announce that METRO Inc., food and pharmacy leader in Québec and Ontario, has started carrying CWENCH Hydration™ in Metro stores in the province of Quebec, alongside Metro stores in Ontario that are already carrying CWENCH Hydration™ products.

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Cizzle Brands continues to strategically scale the brand footprint of CWENCH Hydration™ across Canada, and this placement fortifies the Company’s growth in the Quebec market. Recent developments in Quebec include commercial site distribution of CWENCH Hydration™ through Montreal-based Van Houtte Coffee Services (who services over 3,000 locations in the Montreal area alone) and full distribution across MacEwen-owned gas stations in both Ontario and Quebec.

In a press release dated January 9, 2025, Cizzle Brands announced that 47 Metro supermarkets in Ontario were to begin carrying Hydration Mix packets of CWENCH Hydration™ in their pharmacy sections.

Based on early-stage performance of CWENCH Hydration™ in Metro’s Ontario stores, Cizzle Brands has worked with METRO Inc. to make the following additional placements of the product in the grocer’s Quebec locations:

As of December 21, 2024, METRO Inc. operates a network of some 995 food stores under several banners including Metro, Metro Plus, Super C, Food Basics, Adonis and Première Moisson, and 640 pharmacies primarily under the Jean Coutu, Brunet, Metro Pharmacy and Food Basics Pharmacy banners. More information about METRO can be found on its website: https://corpo.metro.ca/en/home.html

Cizzle Brands’ Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer John Celenza commented, “We are pleased that CWENCH Hydration™ has performed well in Metro supermarkets in Ontario, leading to an expansion into their locations in the Quebec market. Grocery is proving to be an important category for us, particularly because there are many more opportunities to drive awareness of new products ( e.g., through floor displays, weekly flyers, etc.) which we can leverage to encourage first-time purchase conversions. Working with the METRO Inc. team has been a great pleasure for us, and we look forward to continuing this relationship as we seek to further establish CWENCH Hydration™ as a leading name in sports beverages.”

About Cizzle Brands Corporation

Cizzle Brands Corporation is a sports nutrition company that is elevating the game in health and wellness. Through extensive collaboration and testing with leading athletes and trainers across several elite sports, Cizzle Brands has launched two leading product lines in the sports nutrition category: (i) CWENCH Hydration™, a better-for-you sports drink that is now carried in over 1,200 stores in Canada, the United States, and Europe; and (ii) Spoken Nutrition, a premium brand of athlete-grade nutraceuticals that carry the prestigious NSF Certified for Sport® qualification. All Cizzle Brands products are designed to help people achieve their best in both competitive sports and in living a healthy, vibrant, active lifestyle.

For more information about Cizzle Brands, please visit: https://www.cizzlebrands.com/

For more information about CWENCH Hydration™, please visit: https://www.cwenchhydration.com

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On behalf of the Board of Directors of the Company,

CIZZLE BRANDS CORPORATION

“John Celenza”

John Celenza, Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer

CAUTIONARY NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION

This news release contains "forward-looking information" which may include, but is not limited to, information with respect to the activities, events or developments that the Company expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future, such as, but not limited to: new products of the Company and potential sales and distribution opportunities. Such forward-looking information is often, but not always, identified by the use of words and phrases such as "plans", "expects", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates", or "believes" or variations (including negative variations) of such words and phrases, or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. Various assumptions or factors are typically applied in drawing conclusions or making the forecasts or projections set out in forward-looking information. Those assumptions and factors are based on information currently available to the Company.

Forward looking information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other risk factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking information. Such risks include risks related to increased competition and current global financial conditions, access and supply risks, reliance on key personnel, operational risks, regulatory risks, financing, capitalization and liquidity risks. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The Company undertakes no obligation, except as otherwise required by law, to update these forward-looking statements if management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors change.

Following the success in Metro Inc. stores in Ontario, CWENCH Hydration™ is now available at Metro Inc. stores across the Province of Quebec.

JERUSALEM (AP) — An Israeli probe into the killings of 15 Palestinian medics last month in Gaza by Israeli forces said Sunday it has found “professional failures” and a deputy commander will be fired.

Israel at first claimed that the medics' vehicles did not have emergency signals on when troops opened fire but later backtracked. Cellphone video recovered from one of the medics contradicted Israel’s initial account.

The military investigation found that the deputy battalion commander, “due to poor night visibility,” assessed that the ambulances belonged to Hamas militants. Video footage obtained from the incident shows the ambulances had lights flashing and logos visible, as they pulled up to help an ambulance that had come under fire earlier. The teams do not appear to be acting unusually or in a threatening manner as three medics emerge and head toward the stricken ambulance. Their vehicles immediately come under a barrage of gunfire that goes on for more than five minutes with brief pauses.

Eight Red Crescent personnel, six Civil Defense workers and a U.N. staffer were killed in the shooting before dawn on March 23 by troops conducting operations in Tel al-Sultan, a district of the southern Gaza city of Rafah. Troops then bulldozed over the bodies along with their mangled vehicles, burying them in a mass grave. U.N. and rescue workers were only able to reach the site a week later to dig out the bodies.

The head of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society has said the slain men were “targeted at close range.”

The Israeli military investigation said the Palestinians were killed due to an “operational misunderstanding” by Israeli forces, and that a separate incident 15 minutes later, when Israeli soldiers shot at a Palestinian U.N. vehicle, was a breach of orders.

It was not immediately clear whether the military investigation found that any of those killed were Hamas militants. Israel’s military initially said nine were militants.

The investigation found that the decision to crush the ambulances was wrong but denied that there was an attempt to conceal the event.

“The examination found no evidence to support claims of execution or that any of the deceased were bound before or after the shooting," it added.

Israel has accused Hamas of moving and hiding its fighters inside ambulances and emergency vehicles, as well as in hospitals and other civilian infrastructure, arguing that justifies strikes on them. Medical personnel largely deny the accusations.

Israeli strikes have killed more than 150 emergency responders from the Red Crescent and Civil Defense, most of them while on duty, as well as over 1,000 health workers, according to the U.N. The Israeli military rarely investigates such incidents.

Palestinians and international human rights groups have repeatedly accused Israel’s military of failing to properly investigate or whitewashing misconduct by its troops.

The International Criminal Court, established by the international community as a court of last resort, has accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant of war crimes. Israel, which is not a member of the court, has long asserted that its legal system is capable of investigating the army, and Netanyahu has accused the ICC of antisemitism.

FILE.- Mourners gather around the bodies of 8 Red Crescent emergency responders, recovered in Rafah a week after an Israeli attack, as they are transported for burial from a hospital in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, on Monday, March 31, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana, file)