French drinks giant Pernod Ricard has proclaimed itself the fastest growing supplier of branded wine in the UK, with its sales in British supermarkets of its ‘light’ wines up 12.4% last year, according to TheDrinksBusiness.com.
Key to this growth were its Australian brand Jacob’s Creek and its Spanish brand Campo Viejo, with the newly added ‘Blanco’ version of the latter playing its part in the expansion. Pernod’s wine portfolio is growing at 400% the pace of its primary rivals, according to Laurent Pillet, managing director for Pernod UK.
In what he described as “an astonishing achievement,” Campo Viejo sales rose by almost 20% on a like-for-like basis over the Christmas period, while sales of Brancott Estate, the Wine.com customer favourite, were up 17.9% for the period.
Speaking at the Pernod Ricard Roundtable, as quoted by TheDrinksBusiness.com, Pillet said, “What is even better is when you know that we’re selling at an average price, the highest average price for wine suppliers in the UK market – it is £6.03 per bottle which is about £1 more than the average branded wine business in the UK.”
However, he wouldn't discuss whether or not recent exchange rate fluctuations would affect price.
“Long term, very transparently, [maintaining margin] is not sustainable, we are impacted on our margin because the cost of goods imported is more expensive in Sterling than it used to be in the past,” he said.
“On a temporary basis we can absorb part of it, but in the long-term we need to impact part of this to our consumers. But there is no announcement [on that] today, we will just do it with our customers.”
Overall, Pernod posted sales growth of 2% for the first half of the year (+4% organic growth), recording €5.06 billion for the period.
© 2017 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Peter Donnelly. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine
