Paris (AFP)
The ordinance on the supervision of promotions, one of the flagship measures of the Food Law, has reduced by almost 10% the turnover of the fairs with the autumn wines, penalizing in particular the bordeaux and the champagnes, according to a study by the firm Nielsen.
"While consumer goods are stable overall," the wines show a decline of 9.4% in turnover in the eight weeks from September 2 to October 27 compared to the same period of 2018, said Tuesday in a statement Nielsen, whose studies refer in this sector.
In September and October, the total sales of the wine department fell below the billion mark in hypers, supermarkets, "drives" and convenience stores, said the firm Nielsen, after a year 2018 that had already been disappointing , marked by sales down 2.1% in value and 4.4% in volume.
According to Nielsen, this drop in sales follows the adoption of the order for volume and value promotions in December 2018 and its implementation since the beginning of the year.
"We agree on the observation that wine fairs may be coming to the end of the cycle," said a spokesman for System U, before adding: "It's because of the limited promotions , we are not at all in phase with that ", the law Food has" already the back quite broad ".
Since 1 January, promotions on food products can not exceed 34% of the sales price to the consumer and since 1 March, the overall volume of promotions is limited to 25% of sales or projected volume of purchase between the supplier and the distributor fixed by contracts.
- Increased seasonality -
In System U, this year we see a decrease of about 5% in the volume of wine sales in September-October, "as in other brands", but the decline would be "three to four years old" .
"This year, it appears in the open," the channel continues. "We will have to rethink the way wine fairs exist, to bring back advice, selection, not to reason in terms of price feats." Today, people eat less meat, but better quality, wine is maybe a bit like that. "
But for Jean Glussot, expert distribution and wines in the firm Nielsen, the loss of attractiveness results "a direct effect of the law Food, sales with reduction of more than 34% are now prohibited", while accounted for "almost a third of champagne turnover in the autumn 2018 edition".
"Champagnes are the most [affected] with -34% of turnover, of which 90% comes from a decline in promotion," adds Nielsen.
Two French champagne houses, Vranken Pommery and Lanson, had already announced in mid-September to have their plunge in the red in the first half, especially because of the application of the Food Law (Egalim).
With the consequence of "strongly increase the seasonality of the activity in favor of the second half, especially for champagne", had emphasized Vranken Pommery in a statement.
- The exception of whites -
In terms of still wines (non-sparkling), the decline in sales is lower (-5.4%) and can be explained primarily by red wines, which account for 94% of losses, notably penalized by Bordeaux. Only the whites are doing well (+ 1.1%).
If we look by distribution channel, over the entire period and all wines combined, it is the largest hypermarkets (more than 7,500 m2) which show the greatest decline, "on a usually driving event for this format ": 51% of the decline in food turnover comes from wine, says Nielsen.
For Jean Glussot, "the rebound will come from a thorough work on the shelf with three priority areas: strong biases on the assortment are necessary to stand out, especially in the face of online wine merchants; [it must] play on the the theatricalization of the department (...), finally, [it is necessary] a real effort of pedagogy with the consumers to accompany them in their choices in this radius so rich in references and in labels (bio, biodynamic, in conversion towards the bio, high environmental value, nature, sulfur-free, vegan ...) "
For this expert, "this qualitative work must take over from the promotional offers of recent years".
The autumn wine fairs account for about a quarter of the annual sales of the wine department in supermarkets.
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