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Over the
past twenty years the abundance of retail wine purchases for home
consumption in the UK has switched from males to females, who are now
responsible for 68% of all supermarket take-home. Generally in-store
purchases are made by the attractiveness of the label rather than the
contents of the bottle. Supermarkets
now control in excess of 80% of all retail take-home wine sales in the
UK and currently overproduced new world wines dominate their shelves. The shelf
dullness of offering the same over-produced new world wine throughout
all UK supermarkets has been influenced by “dumped” prices which
allow substantial retail profit margins - at the expense of adding more
choice for consumers. In an
attempt to move over-produced new world wines off the supermarket
shelves, many wineries are hiding behind bogus branding to promote the
idea that advertising support is on a scale similar to a true brand such
as Coca Cola, when in fact the promotional support is virtually
non-existent. The results provide only short-lived success, dependent
only on low purchasing by supermarket groups. With reduced opportunities to establish European and North/South American
wines on UK supermarket shelves at feasible prices for wineries, MPC
believes that producers wishing to break into the UK market should
concentrate on the On Trade (Restaurants and Bars). Although this market
is highly fragmented and to an extent dominated by the major Brewing
Groups , wine sales in this sector have grown by more than 20% in the
past five years. Sales are expected to increase further as a result of
the 24 hour-a-day opening of pubs, clubs and drinking venues. The
“Bridget Jones” generation of working women has seen the explosion
in “Chardonnay” drinking and recently this phenomenon has been
extended to the drinking of “Pinot Noir” following the launch of the
Oscar-nominated film “Sideways” - 2005. Rightly or
wrongly, wine consumption in the UK is likely to be motivated by fashion
at the expense of education. Education,
distribution and sales backup are the keys to the UK on-trade. MPC
through their subsidiary company Wine & Food Limited are in a
position to advise wineries on the best methods of securing a share of
this substantially growing market. Please contact MPC’s Wine & Food Limited. Back to: Global Wine Selection, Supply and Retail Expertise |
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