Harpers Wine & Spirit Trade News

Morgenrot chairman and founder Rudi Plath passes away

Published: 20 December, 2021

Rudi Plath, the founder of Morgenrot and well-known character in the wine and beer trade, passed away on 17 December.

Concerns over Christmas bookings for hospitality

Published: 03 December, 2021

Leading trade associations have raised concern about the impact that Covid-19 and the new variant Omicron is having on Christmas bookings for the sector.

BWS sales continue to fall in grocery sector

Published: 12 October, 2021

Grocery alcohol sales fell by 6% for the 12 weeks to 3 October due to the impact of the reopening of the on-trade, the latest data from Kantar has revealed.

Long read: Are hard seltzers over before they really began?

Published: 02 September, 2021

Richard Horwell, owner of specialist food and drink marketing and branding company Brand Relations, anticipates a hard year ahead for a fledgling drinks trend.

BWS grocery sales decline 6%

Published: 24 August, 2021

Beer, wine and spirits (BWS) sales through supermarkets continued to slide in the four weeks ending 14 August 2021, down 6% compared with the same period last year, according to Total Till data from NielsenIQ released today.

Online BWS sales shoot up again

Published: 10 August, 2021

Online beer, wine and spirits (BWS) sales shot up once again, posting 29.9% year-on-year growth in July compared to the previous month, according to the latest IMRG Capgemini Online Retail Index released today.

C&C Group appoints Harriet Kininmonth as wine trading director

Published: 09 August, 2021

C&C Group has appointed Harriet Kininmonth to the newly created position of wine trading director.

Overall BWS supermarket sales continue to slide

Published: 27 July, 2021

Beer, wine and spirits (BWS) sales through supermarkets continued to slide in the last four weeks to 17 July, down 6% compared with the same period last year, according to Total Till data from NielsenIQ released today.

‘Freedom day’ provides lift for bars

Published: 27 July, 2021

The long-awaited easing of Covid restrictions on 19 July saw like-for-like drinks sales at a GB level dropping by just 5% on the same day in July 2019, according to CGA’s Drinks Recovery Tracker.

Supermarkets record drop in BWS sales

Published: 20 July, 2021

Take-home sales of alcohol over the four weeks to 11 July were down by 3% compared with the previous month, according to the latest figures from Kantar.

On-trade group sales nearly level with 2019

Published: 19 July, 2021

Britain's managed pub, restaurant and bar groups saw sales in June nearly level with the same month in 2019 on both a total and like-for-like basis, according to the latest Coffer CGA Business Tracker.

Online BWS sales soar 52%

Published: 14 July, 2021

Online beer, wine and spirits (BWS) sales soared the week commencing 27 June as England prepared to play Germany for a place in Euro 2020.

Positive thinking

Published: 07 July, 2021

While the past year has been extremely challenging for alcohol, there’s cause for optimism when it comes to recovery. Lisa Riley crunches IWSR numbers.

Jerry Lockspeiser: Lessons from the BrewDog affair

Published: 24 June, 2021

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.” Warren Buffett

BWS online sales hold up ‘remarkably well’

Published: 14 June, 2021

Online beer, wine and spirits (BWS) sales rose 7.5% in May, bucking the downward trend recorded across the majority of FMCG categories.

LWF: Wine yet to see accelerated demand for no/low

Published: 19 May, 2021

Wine has yet to see an accelerated demand for the no/low alcohol space unlike spirts and beer, which have both gathered pace in recent years.

Alcohol exports plummet

Published: 05 May, 2021

Alcohol exports from the UK to the EU were in free fall for the first couple of months of this year, hit by the perfect storm of Brexit at the beginning of the year alongside Covid lockdowns across Europe continuing to shatter the on-trade, newly released data has revealed.

Online BWS sales slump

Published: 13 April, 2021

Year on year online beer, wines and spirits (BWS) sales slumped 6.7% in March, making it the only category online to record negative growth, according to IMRG Capgemini Online Retail Index.

BWS sales growth slows on lockdown anniversary

Published: 30 March, 2021

Alcohol sales continued to grow in March in the grocery sector boosted by lockdown but this is likely to change as the on-trade reopens, Kantar has predicted.