Leading local wine distributor Vinimark released its local market review, covering off consumption sales out data captured between January and December 2023. Compiled by Oelof Weideman, Head of Insights and Business Advisory at Vinimark, the review reveals moments of optimism tainted by concerns that will carry us into the rest of 2024, and possibly beyond.
If concerns about permissible bottle weight, carbon footprint, and new export legislation deepen, we may very well see more and more ‘bag-in-box’ wine carrying fresh cachet and rising to meet the growing demand. The volume sales for ‘bag-in-box’ wine have increased by 15% since 2019. The volume is currently sitting at 94,8 million litres sold in 2023, compared to approximately 90 million litres sold in 2022 and only 55 million litres in 2019. Volume has almost doubled in five years.
But there’s hope for alternate packaging. Like box wine, Tetra Pak wine is a rising category. Reading between the lines of the sales data, Tetra Pak seems to resonate more with consumers than wine in PET plastic bottles. Sales of Tetra Pak containers increased by 19,7%, with 14,9 million litres sold in 2023, up from 11,8 million in 2022; PET packaging increased sales by just 5,3%, and with a year-to-date increase to 2,8 million litres sold last year, compared to 2,6 million in 2022.
It looks as though consumers in the lower income brackets might be feeling the pinch more than the other lifestyle measures, judging by sales in the sub-R80 per bottle range that have decreased since 2019 and are down since last year too. Over the last 12 months there has been growth in the R100-R200 category and more substantial growth in the +R200 category.