UKVA reorganises to benefit membership

English wine trade body, the UKVA, is reorganising its internal structure and appointing a CEO to make it more efficient and better benefit its members, it has announced.

UKVA’s general secretary Jo Cowderoy confirmed the organization, which represents grape growers and winemakers across the UK, is hoping to appoint a new boss by early next year.

“The industry has grown hugely in the last few years and the body needs to evolve to provide all of its current membership with improved services,” she told the drinks business. “We had a recent vision strategy workshop and out of that we came up with a list of things we wanted to achieve – and we decided we needed to find a CEO, someone to give direction to implement the changes and developments, and be supported by the organization.”

“It’s very early days, but there had already been lots of interest,” she said.

Under the new leadership, the organization is looking to develop its services to members, viticulture research & development, and generic marketing, Cowderoy said. It also wants to leverage the skills of its existing members and may look at increasing its team at a future date as it grows.

“We have a lot of people coming into the industry after successful careers in a wide range of sectors, so we have a rich pool of skills already within the organisation. From the management committee to working groups, we want to use the skills of the talented people we already have,” she said.

Cowderoy confirmed the UKVA will continue to work closely with English Wine Producers (EWP) and there were no plans to merge the two organisations.

“The UKVA covers all vineyards, from those with half an acre to those with hundreds of acres, but obviously the bigger producers need more marketing so that is covered by EWP, who have been hugely successful,” she said.

It follows speculation earlier in the summer that the UKVA and EWP would merge, however EWP also confirmed the two organisations will remain separate and continue to fulfill their respective roles.

“UKVA is now working on a new structure to enable it to better function in delivering the much-needed services to growers and producers, whilst EWP is strengthening its marketing role,” Julia Trustram-Eve told db last month.