Yapp expansion comes to the fore at autumn tasting

By Jo Gilbert

Published: 18 September, 2024

Yapp Brothers showed the full breadth of its portfolio at 67 Pall Mall this week, just months after a major move to new premises which not only doubled the size of its HQ, but has trebled the business’s capacity.

An expanded mindset for Yapp was on show at Monday’s (16 September) tasting, where the distributor showed around 70 wines from across the world, in contrast to last autumn’s Rhone only format. (The business tends to alternate every year between a wider portfolio tasting format and a Rhone focus.)

Several new wines were on show on Monday. This spanned a new own label Touraine Sauvignon and some rare wines of Domaine de la Grange des Pères, plus a number of listings from reserves and back catalogues.

Read more: North South Wines adds Agricoltori del Chianti Geografico to portfolio

However, the business has been more focused on re-thinking its operational efficiencies this year, rather than expanding the portfolio.

Back in June, Yapp left its home of 55 years in the centre of the town of Mere in Wiltshire and moved 15 miles down the road to Sparkford, just north of Yeovil in neighbouring Sommerset. The “much more modern premises” is 20,00 sq feet in size, with plans in place to convert the warehouse into a bonded space. Technological advances are in the works too, with plans to improve the business’s customer interface by incorporating generative AI.

“The site in Mere served us very well,” CEO Tom Ashworth explained to Harpers. “But we’d spent 50 years unloading articulated lorries on a small corner, and the Victorian warehousing was difficult from a logistics point of view. We’d just outgrown it.”

Ashworth reports record turnover in the year to June, with the more modern setup now fully capable of meeting the business’s growing needs.

“In Mere, it would take a day to unload a lorry, whereas now we can do it in an hour. What started as a France-focused mail order catalogue many years ago is now full-service wine merchant with listings from all over the world.

“We’ve been a full-service operator for some time, but since Brexit, we’ve had more interest from smaller groups. You really have to know what you’re doing now and stay on top of imports. The days where small independent and resturants would do groupage is gone – it doesn’t make any sense anymore. We’re quite good at that, and looking to do fulfilment for other people. We would like to add to what we’re doing.”

Printer friendly version