Just how little business are Irish wine suppliers doing with Tesco?
@font-face { font-family: "Arial"; }@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }@font-face { font-family: "Helvetica-Oblique"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }
Some 95 per cent of the wine sold by Tesco in Ireland appears to come directly from the UK, according to retail industry estimates.
Drinks Industry Ireland understands that Tesco can now claim 40 per cent of the multiple wine trade and according to latest MAT figures to mid-September, sales at Tesco are up 20 per cent up in volume — but by only five per cent in value, indicating massive discounting.
The multiple appears to be gaining the vast majority of its share at the expense of Supervalu (with a reported 23 per cent of the multiple off-sales market) and (Superquinn with eight per cent).
Dunnes Stores, meanwhile, is understood to have about 30 per cent of the off-trade wine market.
Drinks Industry Ireland further understands that Tesco is only dealing directly with Irish suppliers for those labels uniquely popular in Ireland.
“The larger international companies can thus afford to subsidise their Irish operations to help meet the shortfall in pricing between the UK supplier and the Irish one, but smaller distributors are losing out,” claimed one industry source.
Altogether Tesco, Dunnes, Supervalu and Superquinn share 54 per cent of the off-trade wine market in Ireland between them while off-trade outlets such as symbol groups, independents and garage forecourts account for the some 44 per cent with ‘others‘ taking up the remainder.
