Prosecco fizzes through festive season

Prosecco continued its seemingly unstoppable rise over the Christmas period, with one UK retailer reporting that sales of the Italian sparkling wine outstripped milk.

The Co-operative Food saw a 60% year-on-year uplift in Prosecco sales for the week leading up to Christmas. By Christmas Eve the retailer was selling 6,247 bottles per hour, or two bottles for every second that it was open. It was expecting this rate to rise to three bottles a second in the final run up to New Year’s Eve.

Andrew Mann, customer director at The Co-operative Food, commented: “As a leading convenience retailer we’ve seen a shift in consumer habits and Prosecco has fast become the nation’s favourite drink with which to mark an occasion or celebrate. Over the last few days it has even outsold milk.”

Other retailers enjoyed similarly positive figures, with the Daily Mail reporting that Marks & Spencer’s Prosecco sales were up by 45% on the same period in the previous year.

The news rounded off a spectacular year for Prosecco, with 2014 bringing the news that the category had seen global sales overtake Champagne for the first time.

In the UK, Prosecco enjoyed a 74.6% uplift in the year to 20 July 2014, according to figures from Kantar Worldpanel. Meanwhile one of the country’s biggest on-trade suppliers, Bibendum, reported a 295% surge in super-premium Prosecco sales with a 150% rise for premium Prosecco.