Customers want choice in supermarket wine aisles, Waitrose boss says

UK consumers still want a “rich kaleidoscope” of wines in the BWS aisle, Waitrose BWS head of buying Pierpaolo Petrassi MW has said – despite many supermarkets contracting their ranges over the last few years.

Head of BSW Pierpaolo Petrassi says its customers still want broad choice in the supermarket aisles

Speaking to db recently Petrassi said the retailer’s BWS team was keen to push the boundaries, not only by including new food-orientated formats and wine bars in store, but also by bucking the current trend for contracting the range.

“We unashamedly look internally and don’t listen to the retail market as it has contracted radically over the last few years,” he explained. “Our customers still want a rich kaleidoscope [of wines], they tell us they want us to curate new things, they want to be able to buy the classics and want us to be the archetypal retailer to show us what those classics are.”

Exploring classics is primarily done through Waitrose own label range – in contrast to many of its competitors who use own label to bring new areas and grapes to customers’ attention –  and as a result Waitrose’s BWS own label range is low compared to other retailers, as well as its own broader grocery offering (own label accounts for 15% of the wine portfolio compared to around 45% across its broader grocery offer). It pushes the boundaries by introducing smaller producers and winemakers from un-explored areas as exclusives, Petrassi explains, for example looking at cooler climates in the Southern hemisphere, introducing wines from under-represented areas such as Sicily or Andalusia, or broadening its focus of fine wines from Italy.

Although he noted that Waitrose customers tend to view fine wine sales as predominantly coming from the Old World rather than the New, Petrassi said opportunities could be found across Italy, Spain and beyond France’s traditional Burgundy and Bordeaux regions.

Last month the retailer released a selection of £10 wine parcels in store and also revealed it had acquired two barrels of Burgundy at the recent Hospices de Beaune auction – the first time it has bought wine at the sale.

Online opportunities

The advent of online – and new click and collect capabilities introduced last year – has boosted the potential for the portfolio considerably, he said, by allowing it to “explode” the range online. He highlighted the online Whisky Shop and Champagne Shop that were introduced earlier this year as categories that had presented great opportunity online, where buyers were not limited by space on shelf.

“The thing about branches is that every change you make to space is operationally complex – and involves throwing a lot of demands for hours at retail, when they might not have the time to do it. Sometimes, categories can outgrow your ability to change space quickly and one example was imported whisky – not just Bourbon, but Japanese and Taiwanese whiskies – which has been growing very quickly,” he said. “We needed to be able to give them more space and by launching Whisky Shop, we allowed customers to dive into those more quickly than we could have made them accessible in branches.”

While gin would have been an “obvious” area to focus on, Petrassi said the range in store was already well developed so there was less need to develop it further online – and it was drinks such as Cognac and dark rum that he would be interested in exploring further, although they are currently no plans to do so.re

“If I was gazing into a crystal ball, I would love to do Cognac or dark rum. We’re seeing every one has a distinctive provenance, and they are not just from the Caribbean. One of our best is a Venezuelan rum and we’re looking at anywhere that sells great sugar cane, including Mauritius and Australia. At some stage in the future, I can see rum developing as a category to be not just a mixing spirit, but a sipping spirit to sip and enjoy.”

“We need to be aware of where the market takes us – it could be that if we are successful enough in other areas, there’s no reason we wouldn’t preclude sherry or dessert wine, but for the moment, its Whisky and Champagne that offered the opportunities.”

“There is room for a kaleidoscope,” he added.

Petrassi previously warned that the retail industry was “dumbing down” the message of the true value of wine by concentrating on low prices and failing to help consumers understand why they need to pay a more sustainable price.