SA to punt upmarket wine sales to Holland

Wosa CEO Su Birch on Monday, 31 August 2009, said the Netherlands was an important market in volume terms, but most wines sold there were cheap.

The plan was to focus on the potential for packaged wines in the à3-à4 and higher price segment. This initiative came after extensive research for Wosa by international agribusiness specialist Arend Heijbroek of Rabobank and wines consultant Cees van Casteren.

“The research was to see if we could sell better-priced wines in the market, and we found that there was potential,” said Birch.

The goal was to strengthen SA's well-entrenched position in the Dutch market. South African wines accounted for 18.7% of retail sales volumes in Holland last year, when 29-million litres of wine were exported to that country.

The Department of Trade and Industry says SA's wine exports rose from R4,7bn in 2007 to R6,2bn last year. Birch said: “We not looking so much to grow the market share but the value share.”

“We want to shift from building volume to building value in this critically important market, which is one of the top four destinations for SA wines.”

Birch said Wosa was looking to work closely with SA Tourism, especially with the hype around the 2010 Soccer World Cup.

“There is currently a good image of SA, so let's build on that,” she said. It would take a concerted effort to build distribution partnerships for on- and off-consumption channels.

“We have to establish a positioning of uniqueness that defines us and separates us from our competitors,” she said.

And while the economy continued on a negative turf, Birch said SA had done better than other countries. “Our wine sales for the first seven months of this year for packaged wine were up 15%, which was really exciting.”

The Dutch campaign would be led by South African marketing specialist Annette Badenhorst, who represented South African wines in New York for five years.

Source: Business Day

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