By Scott Wright
SCOTCH whisky firm William Grant & Sons has underlined its growth prospects in Germany by establishing a wholly-owned distribution company for its brands in the market.
The family-owned distiller has announced that it will exit its deal with Campari Deutschland in December. The Campari vehicle has been the exclusive distributor of William Grant’s brands in Germany for the last seven years.
From next year, the distiller’s brands, including Grant’s, Glenfiddich, The Balvenie and Hendrick’s Gin, will be distributed in Germany by a new company, William Grant & Sons Deutschland. Headquartered in Hamburg, the new division will be led by drinks industry executive Markus Kramer, who has been appointed managing director. Mr Kramer previously held roles with Diageo, Bacardi and BORCO. The distiller, which also owns Drambuie and Tullamore DEW, said the move reflects a strategy to get closer to its customers, while allowing it to continue building brands “the William Grant & Sons way”.
Germany is one of the most valuable export markets for Scotch whisky. Figures released last month by the Scotch Whisky Association revealed that the value of Scotch exports to Germany rose by 5.6 per cent to £184 million in 2019, making it the industry’s fifth most lucrative destination. The volume of exports to Germany rose by 8.3% last year to 50 million 70cl bottles.
Rita Greenwood, regional president for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at William Grant, said: “By taking full control of our distribution arrangements, we are investing in our own capabilities to further develop our business in Germany and the exciting opportunities this dynamic market offers.We welcome Markus to the business and look forward to benefitting from his extensive experience as we enter into a new phase of growth.”
Mr Kramer said: “I am delighted to join William Grant & Sons at this exciting time in its 132-year history. I have admired the business for many years, as well as its brilliant portfolio of brands. I am looking forward to working with a talented and growing team to establish William Grant & Sons as a leading premium spirits company and employer of choice within the German market.”
William Grant made a pre-tax profit of £312.8m on turnover of nearly £1.33 billion in the year ended December 31.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here