Bouncing Back Q&A: Tim Fordham, Liberty Wines

By Jo Gilbert

Published: 25 August, 2021

It’s been a one-of-a-kind 18 months for the trade. Here, as we begin to push into the second half of the second year of the pandemic, Harpers is catching up with businesses to find out how they’re focusing on recovering from the shock, and what challenges and opportunities lie ahead.

We continue our series with views from Tim Fordham, director of UK sales, Liberty Wines.

How ‘back to normal’ are you as a business?

We have been running a full team since June and are actively recruiting to deal with the demand we are currently seeing. During lockdown, our warehouse team didn’t miss a day’s work, ensuring we maintained a high level of service to our customers. In sales and back office, many of us had to work from home for long periods and some were on furlough, though we were careful not to put the company into hibernation. The exciting part now is seeing the office filling up, and the atmosphere and creative thinking that it brings with it, and of course being able to physically interact with our customers.

What are your priorities and predictions for the second half of 2021?

As always, our priority will be providing the best possible service to support our customers. We are well aware of the challenges many of our on-trade customers are facing with staff shortages, reduced capacities and track and trace pings to name a few. Our job is to make sure that they are getting the wines they order on time and in full every single time, giving them one less thing to worry about. We hate letting customers down and despite facing challenges of our own with shipping delays etc, we are holding much higher stocks and are working harder than ever to make sure our customers are not affected.

Another priority will be to integrate into our portfolio the 30 or so producers we have taken on in the past 12 months. We expect the second half of 2021 to continue as it has since the reopening, with strong on-trade and independent off-trade sales. The on-trade has come back with a bang, while the independent off-trade continues to thrive. We will be working with our customers to keep that momentum going.

What kind of Christmas are you anticipating and how are you prepping?

We expect it to be very busy. Providing restrictions don’t make a return, there will be much pent-up demand for celebration at Christmas as most people missed out last year. We will be fine-tuning our service and stocking up well in advance so our customers can list wines with confidence.

Do you anticipate making a full recovery from the pandemic? What timeframes are realistic?

Yes, absolutely. Our business is in fine health despite the difficulties of the past 18 months and we have already experienced in June 2021 our busiest ever month since we started 24 years ago.

How heavily have you been impacted by staffing issues?

We certainly feel our customers’ pain here. Whatever we can do to help them, we are doing so; and while we are currently recruiting, certain areas of the business aren’t finding it easy to find the right quality of person. In others, we’ve attracted some great new recruits, so overall it is a mixed bag.

Are you anticipating more Covid-related restrictions?

It is, of course, impossible to predict. Covid is clearly here to stay but the message is that we will need to learn to live with it. No one wants to see another lockdown but if it happens, we know what to do.

How have drinking habits changed post-lockdown?

We are seeing sales of premium wines in both the on and off-trade perform very strongly. For independent retail, this trend was already happening throughout lockdown as people engaged with their wine merchant and were open to trying new things. For the on trade, our Premium On-Trade Report has shown a trend for some time of people drinking less but better. In short, our average selling price has increased and the diversity of what we sell has also risen.

Lastly, if you could make one change in government tomorrow, what would you choose?

One change makes this a very difficult question to answer! How about ‘a fresh start’?

Quick-fire questions:

France, Spain or Italy?

Italy.

USA or Oz?

Australia.

Port or Sherry?

Sherry.

English bubbles or Champagne?

Champagne.

Go-to drink to watch with the Olympics / tennis / football?