Fair Trade wines rise 25% at The Co-op

The Co-op saw sales of Fairtrade wine grow 25% year-on-year as consumers increasingly look for ethical alternative, it has claimed.

The convenience retailer is the UK’s largest retailer of Fairtrade wines and earlier this year introduced a new policy as part of a wider range review, whereby the team decided to strip out any non-Fairtrade wine duplication from the range, and make Fair-trade the core line where possible, as well as adopting a more tailed approach to different stores in the estates.

As a result, it has seen sales grow 25% compared to last year, after a  45% jump in sales in the two weeks after the range went live in store, BWS boss Simon Cairns told db in an interview in June.

Alongside its sales data, the retailer commissioned consumer research on attitudes to Fairtrade wines, which found that around half of UK consumers now actively look for Fairtrade wines when they shop, with 20% saying they bought it “as much as they can” and a further third claiming to buy it monthly. Millennials and men are more likely to buy Fairtrade, the survey found.

Awareness of Fairtrade was also shown to have risen, ranking third behind free-range eggs and buying British in terms of consumer’s ethical decisions – however the survey also revealed there is still some lingering confusion, with 10% assuming it means organic, and a further 10% incorrectly assuming Faitrade wines originate from Europe and New Zealand, instead of South Africa and South America.

A fifth also assume there is a premium on Fairtrade wines, making them more expensive.

Last year a report compiled for the retailer found sales of Fairtrade wines in the UK had grown by 9% in 2014 to 10.8 million litre, with sales reaching 11.78 million litres last year, according to the Fairtrade Foundation. The UK is the leading global market for Fairtrade wine, accounting for just under half of the 24.7 million litres sold worldwide in 2015.