Constellation attempt to artificially influence on-trade sales exposed

A leaked company e-mail has exposed Constellation Europe’s attempt to artificially boost sales of its Nottage Hill brand in a bid to win an £80 million contract with JD Wetherspoon.

An e-mail was apparently sent to 300 staff members at Constellation’s distribution company Matthew Clark, inviting them to purchase eight bottles of the company’s wine from their local JD Wetherspoon and to reclaim from expenses.

It was believed that this would sufficiently influence sales of Nottage Hill (and Echo Falls in Bristol) so that the company would win the contract with Wetherspoon. The pub chain had announced that the £80m contract would be decided based on an eight-week trial, prompting Constellation’s offer to their staff.

A follow up e-mail, the one that was leaked, read: "To date we have had a poor response to our invitation to get all employees to visit their local JD Wetherspoon outlet and purchase Nottage Hill Chardonnay and Shiraz (and Echo Falls in the Bristol area) and reclaim via expenses."

It went on to say, "We would implore each of you to participate in this activity as it is vitally important that we maximise volumes during the remainder of the trial period."

Constellation’s response is reported to be that "Employees were asked to support the trial by visiting their local JD Wetherspoon, purchasing one of these wines and then commenting on the purchase experience via a feedback form. Employees were asked to comment on topics such as wine temperature, freshness of product and staff wine knowledge."

JD Wetherspoon will apparently be reassessing sales figures to ensure that the results had not been unfairly influenced.

© db 27th July 2006