Each year we consume around a billion bottles. Just in case you think that was a misprint, let me put it another way. We enthusiastically went out and bought a thousand million bottles of wine (1,000,000,000!).

The trouble with the sort of figures that you usually hear in stock market reports is that it’s difficult to picture what they mean. So put another way, if you took the empties and laid them end to end, they would stretch ten times round the earth or, rather conveniently, all the way to the moon.

What a billion bottles of wine means is that, essentially, every drinking household in the UK went out every day and bought a bottle of wine. In a survey* a couple of years ago, more than half of the wine buying public said that they wanted to buy something different to their last purchase.

*Source: BMRB International

Firstly wine is not just one of the most frequently purchased items on the shopping bill, but also that customers want to experiment with lots of different wines which means they are experienced too. There are few other grocery items you buy one of each day. Maybe milk would qualify… but of course, it is always the same sort of milk. These people want to choose a different wine each time.

Secondly if the customer is buying wine they are also drinking it. Wine has become part of the British lifestyle. As retailers we need to understand this basic fact. If we wish to remain relevant to customers we need to serve them with the products they want. In this context that means good wine. Understand the customer… basic retail.

The bad news is that, although the on trade represents much more than 20% of drinks sales in the UK, 80% of wine is sold through the off trade. There is a huge opportunity for the on trade.
The good news is that that is what this course is all about!