Majestic: most new lines in last 15 years

A wealth of desperate producers offering wine to retailers at keen prices has contributed to Majestic taking on more new lines in 2009 than at any other time in the last 15 years.

At last week’s Majestic Winter Tasting, buyer Chris Hardy told the drinks business: "A lot of desperate producers will need to turn more stock into cash so there are lots of keen prices out there – people are feeling the effect and I can’t see it going away.

"This year we’ve included more new lines into the business than in all the time I’ve been at Majestic since 1994. Ten years ago there used to be a question over the quality of these cheap parcels but now there’s less poor quality and what is available tends to be pretty good quality due to over production.”

Hardy added that the cheaper parcels are not only coming from countries that have made the headlines for overproduction, such as New Zealand, but from every corner of the globe, even France.

“France has been one of the last places to react but even the French can now see the need to reduce prices which is great as some of them were pricing themselves out of the market,” he said.

Despite being "encouraged" by the performance of Majestic this year, Hardy is already concerned about the year ahead. “We know next year is going to be challenging but we’ve weathered the recession pretty well and we’re optimistic for Christmas.

“The greatest fear is balancing the sterling against the euro, and VAT is going up to 17.5% and who knows how much more than that, plus duty is going to increase agan. It makes things challenging, not only for us as retailers but for suppliers too and it’s hard asking them to dig deeper.”

Talking of the recent introduction of six-bottle cases to the stores, Hardy added: “We created lots of excitement at store level but it’s still too early to read the figures.”

Jane Parkinson, 19.10.2009