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Living with lockdown – Berkmann Wine Cellars

Let’s start with Help 4 Hospitality – how does it work?

The initiative is the main thing that's occupying me at the moment. From the consumer point of view it's a pop up online wine shop where we have a selection from our range that I've made available to buy for free home delivery.

Outlets receive a unique voucher code to share with their mailing lists, the idea being that those customers distribute their special code to their mailing list or followers on social media. There is a list available through the [Help 4 Hospitality] site that gets them a 5% discount, and also channels 12.5% of the order value in the direction associated with that code, which might either be a 50-50 split between the two charity trusts that we've chosen, The Drinks Trust and Hospitality Action, or to a specific on-trade customer signed up to the programme.

We started with orders of £120, but we've lowered that to £95, which we were we were able to do as the order volume was quite good, and we’ve just launched a new improved online shop for that. We started out with the kindergarten version, and now we’re on something slightly more sophisticated, so I've been building that with my colleagues, trying to make content for that, doing some video stuff, working on new products - mixed cases, that kind of thing.

How well is it working?

We've got more than 200 on-trade customers already [joined the scheme] and ongoing are rolling it out. And so far we've received around about 500 orders through the site. It's now starting to gather some pace and we have some fun activity coming up, so this will continue to grow.

This week we'll be launching a mixed case chosen by well-known chef Jacob Kenedy (Bocca di Lupo, Plaquemine Lock) and this will be backed by a video with him and me cooking a recipe that goes with one of the wines in the case.

We did a case for international Malbec, with a video, and there’s lots more coming up, we're trying to keep the content building and keep people engaged and come up with new reasons for them to get some wine.

There will be further innovations, definitely keep an eye on our social media feeds - Instagram the main one - where there’ll be some entertaining surprises in the weeks to come.

Are your suppliers involved?

We've also been receiving some further donations to the cause from some of our suppliers. It's a mixture and some are offering additional fundings that we might be able to put into promos, some are sending over stock that we can then put into the pot and sell. There are quite a few different mechanics, but we're receiving some fantastic pledges of support from our suppliers who want to add their contribution to what we're doing.

What’s the feedback from those involved on the on trade side?

They really like the idea. I think they very much appreciate it. We’ve been building a plan that keeps our doors open and some orders flowing out.

More generally, what does life look like at Berkmann at the moment?

We have a safe skeleton staff manning the office for now and we’re observing all distancing rules. And we are doing plenty of work in the background to try and make sure that we steer through these financial waters in as good a shape as possible. And come out with a manageable amount of debt that will allow us to adapt to whatever conditions we find ourselves in.

Do you think there will be any major longer-term changes to the on-trade? 

It's hard to say. Certainly, I think that everyone in the supply chain is concerned about a shrinking of the hospitality sector. And that, if it happens, will inevitably lead either to the shrinkage of the supply chain or necessitates strategic change or both.

I think, probably, that predictions of really fundamental changes to society, or to the way the world operates, in a very general sense, because of this, are likely to be overstated. People will have, maybe, more of a tendency than seems possible now to slip back into old routines.

But that's not going to happen overnight either. Because businesses will need to readjust, as well as consumers as they emerge, blinking, into the light of progressively enhanced freedoms. During the course of this, the longer it goes on, there may well be a paradoxical blend of increasing desire to escape and also increasing anxiety about doing so.

What are the practicalities of flipping from on-trade supply to direct to consumer, B2B to B2C?

We have capacity for this to grow, and certainly we have plenty of wine. And we have good infrastructure. It has been a matter of adapting, the order sizes for private consumers are of course smaller on average than to the trade. So it puts a little bit more pressure on customer services and logistics per pound earned, but we're getting really good feedback about the wines, the offering and the service.

And if we can continue to service our small chunk of that market while amassing this pot for the on-trade, then we're really keen for it to carry on growing.

Our delivery network does cover most of the country, but we are using couriers at the moment in some regions.

How much of your usual on-trade turnover is this managing to cover?

It's very, very small in comparison. Our on-trade turnover would be typically in the region of £5m a month. This is not turning over. If we managed to hit £5m a month on a B2C platform that we started from scratch three weeks ago I think we would have pulled off the biggest online retailing success ever!

What is selling direct to consumers?

There's quite a wide spread and we seem to be hitting needs at all levels, which is really good. The most mainstream people are going for [mainstream wines], but some people are dipping into the fine wine area. People are going for the mixed cases in some instances, which is really good, because they'll get to try some more off the wall things as well as the mainstream. Other people are putting together their own mixed cases with a really nice spread of products. So it feels like we've covered a lot of bases in the 150 or so products that we've started with. There are 17 countries featured, before we get into the spirit side of things, so it's fairly diverse, and the price range is £8 to £88 pounds.

How’s the off-trade side of the business doing?

We're certainly finding that the other side of what we're doing, servicing the retail trade, is strong. We are seeing good sales to supermarkets and independent retailers and are making sure that we're trying to service those with us as well as possible, putting out new offers and deals for the independents. Help 4 Hospitality is taking up more of my time and my team's time because it's a new side to our business, but on the traditional sales side, the retail division is being kept very busy as well.

How is the supply side into the UK?

We're placing very few orders and we're not finding too much difficulty, because it seems that the movement of goods has been maintained, pretty much everywhere. We've certainly had none of our orders turned down and nothing more than minor delays getting stock out. Obviously one of the concerns is that most of our suppliers are struggling with the on-trade shut down around the world and that’s going to have the same effect [on them] as we're seeing.

So in a way, I suppose. The situation is quite well matched they need to have fewer people on site in order to ensure safe distancing, they have fewer orders. And so in fact, so it works out.

Any final thoughts on life during lockdown?

It's a time to discover new skills. I've got to do some video editing later, which is not really what I normally get up to. I imagined time saved from commuting, two and a half hours a day for me, would mean I’d get around to those odd jobs you never do. But it turns out being part of a team, launching a new B2C side to the business, I don’t have much time for anything else, though I am doing more cooking and the odd piano lesson.