South African wine distribution company Distell has entered into a deal with Baarsma Wine Group Holding to carry some of its leading brands in Holland, it said on Thursday.
The Netherlands is South Africa’s largest wine export market after the United Kingdom. The deal is in line with Distell’s strategy of strengthening its international distribution ties to grow its brands in more major markets.
The Baarsma Wine Group Holding (BWGH) is a leading player in the Dutch retail and on-consumption channels representing a range of established trademarks to over 6 000 trade customers. The organisation also sells directly to over 30 000 consumers.
Its portfolio includes a broad range of private label wines and it also supplies buyers’-own-brands to many of the country’s major supermarket chains. In addition, the group, which is projecting a turnover of €175-million for the current financial year, runs a sophisticated bottling plant with an annual capacity of 45-million bottles.
The deal will see BWGH carry drive brands such as Fleur du Cap, Durbanville Hills, JC le Roux, Pongracz, Two Oceans and Drostdy-Hof.
Distell director Don Gallow said: “Historically Distell has given less weight to this market than many other South African producers, because it is characterised by heavy discounting, whereas our policy is to protect brand equity.
“However, BWGH gives us access to a combination of supermarket and specialist retail and on-consumption channels for some of our most important wine trademarks. The agreement gives us a balanced exposure across a range of channels and price points. Moreover, with Wine Excel, a member of BWGH, we can explore the option of bottling some of our buyers’-own-brands in Holland, where this is deemed appropriate.”
BWGH was recently identified as a young, dynamic and fast-growing company by ABN Amro Capital, which acquired a major share of the Dutch distributor, now active in 28 markets across the world. – I-Net Bridge