075 | Rob Malin | Building a Planet-Friendly Wine Brand through New Consumption Occasions | When in Rome

Welcome to the Maffeiro Drinks podcast. I'm your host, Chris Maffeiro. In episode 75, we delve into the unique journey of when in Rome wine with founder Rob Malin. We discover how challenging traditional wine packaging led to innovations like bag in box and paper bottles driven by the brand's environmental commitments. Rob shares insights on the complexities of entering The UK market, the impact of bottom up and top down strategies, and the importance of local versus national listings.

We talk about the crucial role of premium retailers like Waitrose in their growth, the financial hurdles faced by new brands, and the potential of cross category competition in alcoholic beverages. I hope you will enjoy our chat. If you enjoy this podcast, please take the time to leave a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. You can also check out mafayordrinks.com, where you can subscribe to my mini guides on Substack or download my new digital course on how to bootstrap a drinks brand. Hi, Rob.

How are you? I'm fine. I'm fine. It's so good here in Prague and it's an honor to have you on because you're the first known Italian that actually speaks Italian that I talked to. So it's a strange feeling, but actually we, you know, this podcast is in English, so we don't take it in English, but it's also like in the the main thing for which I'm very honored is that because you are the first wine brand that is a guest on the Mafel Drinks podcast.

We have to thank our mutual friend Cyrus Johnston for making this happen. You know, on the podcast, I mainly have spirits brands and people that work with cocktails and drinks and, in that sense. I mean, the original reason why it's called Mafayor Drinks is because I wanted to have it as generic as possible so that, you know, I would include wines and beers. And I was trying to find a word that, you know, I wouldn't like to have spirits or beers or wine specifically. But, know, when we think about it, it's also very interesting to see all these categories that are interlinked with each other, but actually also very, very different.

So what's your take on the wine? Because it's, it's, it's often called like, you know, the wines and spirits, but what do

you think about that? It strikes me from listening to some of your content, how much similarity there is. I mean, there are key differences too, but there's so much similarity between spirits and wines, and we don't talk to each other. It says a lot that a lot of the people I was listening to on your podcast, people I've never heard of, I've been in the drinks trade now for six years, And yet the challenges we face are really similar. And of course they're complementary, right, because people drink from across those categories.

And yet our communication is, at least speaking personally, it's really poor.

That's a very interesting one because also I come from beer and and made myself, let's say, my space into the spirits world by, you know, by studying, by doing the WSET. Actually, first one I did the the level two was in wines. And then I did that in in spirits. And I love to have all this cross pollination and, you know, and analyzing things, how, how they work and so on, especially because if you think about it, it is what they usually call the traditional occasions play as a role into the brand building. Historically, for example, like there's been a lot of wine trade in the, in Britain, for example, as you know, it's one of the countries where it's most developed, although historically it hasn't been a wine producing country, but it hasn't been a wine importing country, you know.

And, and all these elements that play around with beer and you know, are countries that are beer driven, are countries that are spirits driven, are countries that are wine driven, but then like how all that plays into role, you know, you have to consider always the, what's the historical conditions of food and beverage are to then tap onto those existing occasions to actually put the foot in the door and make room for your brand. Right?

What's incredible if you think about, you know, not just wine in cans, but canned out of the rise of canned alcoholic drinks, right? Be that beer, spirits, or, you know, RTD cocktails or or wine is that we are all competing directly with each other in a way that I don't think we have done before. You know, if you go and look in a convenience store, let's say at a railway station in London, there will be a chill chiller of alcoholic drinks, and it is canned wine, canned RTD cocktails, and canned beer all next to each other. And and so we're competing head to head in a way that we sort of haven't done certainly in the off trade before. As we've discussed to you, I I'm sort of more, we're more of an off trade brand.

Those things would've been very separate and now we're competing head to head. Right? So it's all complement each other, depending on the way you see it, but I think that's a completely new phenomenon.

Absolutely. No. And it's super interesting what you say, because I, it made me think of something that I discussed with some of my friends and listeners is that about, for example, my podcast now is like, it's, it's super targeted. It's super niche in what I talk about, but ultimately I'm competing with the Joe Rogans and the, and the news and the BBC and, you know, like with with totally different, you know, ballgame, obviously, you know, like I'm not there with listeners and so on. But if you think about if you're driving to work and you've got half an hour or forty minutes, I mean, you click on Spotify and whatever comes in, you listen to it and and I'm fighting for those forty five minutes of your time Yeah.

In the morning. So it could be you calling your kids or, you know, like listening to the news or listening to music or Joe Rogan or my favorite drinks podcast. It's, you know, it's totally different as a as a category, but the fight for time is exactly the same. So when you look at it from a share of throat kind of perspective, you know, I want a refreshing drink to to your previous example, you know, I opened the fridge in the store. What am I gonna have?

You know, like maybe I want you to have a beer and then I have wine or vice versa. And it's super interesting to think about it that way because at the same time you have like super high competition, but also you've got like huge opportunities as you said, no, because, you know, you you tap onto an occasion rather than onto a a category fight. And then he was like, okay, like, actually, maybe, I don't know, 20% of my drinkers are coming from beer, which I would have never thought.

The interesting thing is that we're also in The UK predominantly talking about an occasion that, for example, in Italy doesn't really exist. Right? If you're taking an evening train home from London, so let's say Edinburgh, it's a four and a half hour journey, and I would say a good half of the people on that train will have their dinner on that train. If you took the same train from Milan to Rome at the same time in the same evening, then 0% of people having their dinner on that train. I'm working with a nation that is producing wine for an occasion that doesn't exist in its own, in its own country, you know?

I think that's one of the reasons why canned wine has been so slow to develop in Italy itself. It's just starting to happen by the way, but it's, it's been really slow because the occasions for which it's consumed are just much smaller, you know? That's a great

point by the way, because it's, first of all, I think any, I think Italians on a train from Rome to Milan, they would spend four and a half hours, well now it's three, but they would spend them on the phone deciding where to go for dinner.

Also let me talk about the state of, you know, these, your beautiful high speed trains in Italy compared to our trains in The UK. That's that's another conversation entirely, you know? But for my business, it's a good thing that our trains are served, you know? That's true.

That's true. You're hijacking those trains.

I I don't want high speed trains. I don't want the lower

Let's go back a second and and and explain to us and to and to the listener, Rob, what what is your brand and what, you know, how did you start it and, you know, what is the initial idea of how you started and probably, you know, also how it has developed versus what you had in mind in the beginning?

Firstly, in terms of the brands, I mean, it's a beautiful opportunity to be able to explain to a real Roman why our business is called When in Rome. As you know, in English, have an expression, When in Rome, do as the Romans do. And, it means that when you go to a different country, you respect their customs and their traditions. Right? And, I guess every nation has an, an equivalent in its own language and it's always very different actually, which is, which is interesting in itself.

So the business is six years old. I have two founding partners. They're both Italian, both, Milanese. One is an ex winemaker. The other one's been selling wine in in Milan for a long, long time.

Milan is very, quite unique in Italy in that it's a very cosmopolitan city, like both in the the classic sense of the word cosmopolitan, but also within Italy that there's people from every region of Italy living in Milan, you know, sizable communities that wanted to drink their own, their own region's whites. And so there's a lot of opportunity to sell wine from all over the country because it isn't like that in, in the South Of Italy. It's unusual to find wine from the North. Right? So in Milan, my business partner set up two shops there selling, selling, wine from all over Italy from genuinely for quite small producers.

And it's what in Italian you call so, you know, loose wine in English, or I would get you to call it like wine on town. And they were selling wine in refillable bottles. This was how their business began. And then we were looking at the best way to kind of replicate that experience in The UK. And it was with wine in boxes.

And in in doing so, realizing this opportunity for high quality wine in boxes in The UK, we also looked at the statistics and in Scandinavia, for example, about 60% of wine sold is sold in boxes. And we're like, well, why is this actually? And it is all because of the climate impacts of the packaging. Single use glass bottles are 50% of the climate impact of the wine industry. And so we decided to set up a pre a premium brand of The UK wine in box, called When in Rome, because with a wine in box, it allows you to drink a small amount of wine every day.

So, you know, the Italians have, as you probably know, a higher per capita alcohol consumption than the than the Brits, but you'd never see a drunk Italian because you guys drink much more sensibly than we do, you know? And so this is the thing, you know, we were like drink less, but drink better. And a box a wine box would sort of tick those boxes and enable us to do that.

Love that. Love that. And it it reminds me like of my late I mean, the old times. I mean, I I showed you a photo the other day that, you know, my grand my great grandfather, they were wholesalers in the South Of Italy, near Avellino. And every time I walked by in Rome, like there were all this Vimeoli, know, wines and oil, you know, shops that and back in days when I was a kid, you know, like, was still like that, that you would go with your own bottle and they would fill it up with, you know, there was a huge barrel.

I mean, it was basically like a fake barrel on the wall, but then inside there was like a container where the wine was literally on top. And then you would have the Rosso Bianco and then you would just like, have a of wine and you would either take it from their stock and, you know, use it as a refill. I mean, I, I grew up having, you know, wine, like under the sink in the kitchen. One of my first tasks as a teenager was like to pour the wine from the damage on to the bottles for my parents for, for lunch and dinner. That there's always been a bottle of wine at lunch and dinner, I've never ever seen my father or mother drunk.

I couldn't believe this when I first moved to Italy myself. I'm like, wow. You know, the idea of having just, you know, one glass of wine with lunch, maybe two with dinner, and then just stopping. It, it, it shocked me in, in, in a positive sense, know, if, if you think about it, like what you've just described is, is, is so much of what, when we're talking about what we need to do to combat climate change as a society, it's like circularity and moderation. Right?

And that is exactly what you just described. Circularity. I mean, we we're very, very careful. So obviously we're into decarbonization and, know, we started with glass bottles because that is the, the, the fastest and easiest way to decarbonize the wine industry. But we're very careful to talk about single use glass bottles because it's single use glass bottles that are problem, right?

Like there's nothing wrong with a wine glass and there's nothing wrong with a reusable bottle. In fact, you know, that that kind of reusable piece is something that I would love to see take off in The UK, but it's very hard to to get it right. We've tried and we've tried

and failed so far, to be honest. People usually don't think about, but like a lot of the reasons there is this single use bottle is that historically, you know, it was, let's say, a good way for brands to get a sample in, you know, like when, you know, the first beer brands that started this, I don't wanna mention any name, they started like kinda like fighting the returnable bottle system, you know, because it was like, okay, I leave you a case, check it out, try it, try to sell it and then you order another one, you know, which is much easier than setting up a contract or setting up a contract with a wholesaler and, you know, creating all this returnable system and, you know, like a crate of empty bottles to bring back and, and so forth. So how are you working with the, let's say with the commercial aspects of that? So like how did you start commercializing your product? And first of all, like, so you started in the in The UK, if I if I may understand correctly.

I started in The UK, and, started I mean, you're you're very much about bottom up, but I started as bottom up as it as it can be. I I started on a farmer's market in a city called Bath in The UK. I have huge respect to people who work on farmer's markets because I started in the winter. It was very, very cold. You know, I can remember giving out samples of, of red wine and people were like, this wine's a bit cold, you know?

And I'm like, and what about me? You know, was really hard work. And I go back to Bath Farmers Market about six years later and the same people are still there selling cheese and, and salami and fresh vegetables and, you know, kudos to those guys. That's a hard way to earn a living. Although very satisfying, you know?

We were discovered actually by Waitrose. So it's a UK supermarket that literally they found us on Instagram, and, and said, do you want to work with this? Like, we think that's the space for premiumizing the back in box category because back in box one in The UK historically has a very bad reputation. It, it started in the eighties with kind of low quality Australian wine and low quality containers. And the reputation's pretty bad.

And they were like, we think there's space for us in partnership to premiumize the back in box category in the wine industry. And will you work with us? And it didn't take us long to say yes, you know?

And then what was the path, you know, like to, for, for growth? So, so start starting, you know, like how did you expand into The UK market?

So, I mean, firstly, you know, Waitrose and the original wine buyer, from Waitrose, you know, we call her the patron saint of Wenenrobe because she's did a huge amount of being the, yeah, this, and yeah, you, some of your guys cover that actually. I think Jack O'Ewing in particular talks about the, the, the challenges of working with supermarkets. And when I listened to that podcast, I thought, oh my God, if I'd listened to Jack before starting this business, I'm not sure I'd have had the courage to do it because he, you know, he's so kind of brutal in his assessment of the, the use of, you know, working capital you need to do business with supermarkets. I had no idea, Chris, you know? So we rolled out nationally in Waitrose and of course, you know, quickly had to raise money on the back of that, but we're we're able to, you know, and I was lucky that I was, I was working in banking at the time.

So I had some, you know, financial resources of my own as a seed capital, very quickly needed to raise money. And it's exactly as Jack said, you know, you, you, we raised a small amount of money. What we thought was an enormous amount of at the time, you know, £300,000. We're like, great, we're done. And then as the rate of sale grew, we're like, oh my gosh, this is like, this is nowhere near enough, you know?

And, and I hadn't realized how much money growth costs. It's just expense, you know? Waitrose really was the vehicle for our growth, and and they have a reputation in The UK for incubating brands, and, you know, they did exactly that with us.

This is the burning question for me as a true on trade lover. What made you choose, you know, for example, Waitrose compared to the on trade, you know, the pure bottom up approach that I'm that I'm always discussing, you know, in in in in full honesty, you know, like in a Yeah. You know, I I don't take it personally.

No. No. No. No. So there's two there's two things I'd say.

People in the wine industry is really annoying. They always say the wine industry is different, you know, but the wine industry, Chris, is different. In the sense that we felt we felt that in the entrees, the entrees is a really good place to build a beer or a spirits brand, and it's not so good for the the for the wine trade. I think in in The UK, you know, that the the pub, for example, is not really a wine focused establishment. They sell a lot of wine, but you know, it, it, there's no branding because I mean, firstly, because it's, it's, it's sold in bottles and fridge.

So there's no optics and the spirits of the beer presented in very different ways, right? Historically, and that is actually changing. But, so firstly we felt that it wasn't the best place to build a brand. I agree. And secondly, was pure naivety because my background's not the drinks industry.

So I came into this, you know, from financial services, didn't know what I didn't know. And like many entrepreneurs here, the, the longer I'm in this industry, then sort of the more I understand that I, I don't know much. So so it was a it was a combination of, you know, some some strategic, thinking, but also naivety.

Yeah. I can imagine. But also I'm assuming, like, from what I'm, you know, listening to founders is also like you want to fast track the brand, you know, you want to drive growth as soon as possible. And automatically you think that modern trade is the one that is going to make it happen, you know? But then there is the flip side of the coin is the financial resources and the cash flow and everything that is required to make that happen.

Yeah.

And, and, and actually we think, you know, whether this, there's what is happening in the on trade in The UK, our, our strategy is changing actually, because for example, we sell wine in a pet in a bottle. It's made by a company called Frugal Pack and it's, it's the only commercially available paper wine bottle. However, the, the on trade opportunity there is much larger. And, you know, we realized that for, for, for sporting events, for music events, you know, we had some very amusing conversation because, know, in, in, in concert venues, you're not allowed to take a glass bottle of wine into the arena. Of course you're not.

Right. And we've actually had a conversation with a, an arena the way we were supplying wine and they were like, like, can you hurt somebody with this bottle? Like, what damage can you do with it? And I'm like, no. And I, you know, I had a, I had a video call with them.

I, I literally banged myself on the head with this bottle and I'm like, you can't hurt anyone with

this bottle, you know? And

they, as I, you know, if somebody smashes you in the face with a full Winnie Row paper wine bottle, like you're gonna be pretty annoyed, but it's not gonna hurt this, you know, it's not gonna kill you, you know? And with these, the sort of conversations we've had, so the on trade opportunity there is huge. We catered to it by, by accident really. We basically got contacted by the Etihad Arena that they were hosting the concerts, The UK leg of Coldplay's last world tour. Coldplay had an intention to reduce the carbon footprint of their tour by 50%.

And so they sent a sort of 48 page PDF to every venue and said, reduce your carbon footprint. They came to us and said, we'll have your wine bottles. And of course, so much more than expected because it was literally during the concerts, they realized there was no reason why people needed to decant this wine into another, into a plastic cup. But then why do they need to do that? They could just take the bottle into the arena with the cups.

And and so that can happen really by accident, actually.

Wow. And this is like it's it makes you think of how you can have an occasion in mind, but then these kind of occasions that you are totally dismissing initially, then you realize that actually they can actually play a role. You know, like some categories can play a role. But when you were talking, was thinking like pool scenario, you know, like, you know, you can sit at the pool and then you don't actually think about having a bottle of wine when, you know, glass is not allowed and so on, but then you don't want to have a, you know, how are gonna are you gonna have it? You know, like, you you basically need to ask for a a plastic glass of wine for, you know, like, at the bar and then bring it to where to where you are.

No? But but in in that case, for example, it could it could play a role and it's an occasion that has been historically, you know, played by canned beer or, you know, other things that don't, let's say, get so affected by a different kind of packaging.

The the wine industry has been so attached to one particular container for so long. That kind of transition been really painful for us, you know. If you look at the can wine space in The UK, let alone the paper wart, the paper wine bottle space, like it is, it is challenger brands. The, the main wine brands, which are not, not in that space, you know, they will, they will come. They will come, of course, but they're not there at all at the moment.

I think it like for them it's a bit of a it's a hard one, no? It's like other industries, no? It's like, you know, you want to have the smaller player to play the role of innovators and then create that kind of demand, you know, bottom up and then at some point you just have to adapt it and, you know, adopt it and adapt to it and do it. And and how how has been your journey in creating the demand for your product? You know, because usually one, you know, a big part of it is the so called liquid on lips now, where when it comes to spirits or beers, you know, you want to get sampling and and so on.

So you you mentioned the farmer markets, for example, but, know, how have you played when you let's call it, like, not focusing on the on trade, you are, you know, like, when you are sold in Waitrose, then of course, like, people, like, they they need to buy directly the full package, you know, without tasting it. No. So how did you manage to play that game of, you know, creating that demand and doing the, the, the sampling, convincing people to try it before buying the, the full package.

Yeah. I mean, and that was a huge challenge for us because in the beginning, you know, so now obviously we have, we are, we have all three containers now being small away, seven mil cans, seven fifty mil paper bottle, and a 2.25 liter box. Right? At the beginning, was only a 2.25 liter box. And that launched a Waitrose 25, which is a lot of money to spend, you know, on wine that you've never tasted.

We tackled that in two ways. So we did a lot of food and drink fairs in the beginning. So, you know, w within Waitrose, so sampling within Waitrose and the Waitrose drinks festivals, but also all the wine festivals, we did them all. And the other thing we did was we had a kind of a taster pack, which was like a mini bag in box, like 100 mil samples, annoyed of our wines on a sort of what looks like a kind of a, like a pizza tray almost with like little tiny bag in boxes inside it. And we worked with a company in The UK that helped us do that.

And we sold that on our website for basically no margin just to get people. It kind of made a nice present for people because there's like, like nine small glasses of wine of different wines. And that was another way to get liquid to lips, you know.

And this is also like one of the things that, I mean, Waitrose to this example of, or let's say The UK in general, it's a very forward thinking market, no? Like if you, if you think about it compared to other markets, it's also like it's super, super developed in terms of, you know, food festivals, you know, the categories and all the things and, you know, like it's quite in no innovative in that sense if you compare it to other countries. And so it's it's very smart from what I'm hearing. By being in the modern trade, you played with some ways that actually are belonging to the, what I, what I usually call the bottom up trade. No.

So where you can actually have a conversation with people that despite being only a shelf in the actual store, there's not so many people, you know, walking around helping you choose in a supermarket. No, but, but they know if you play with, let's say events or, or things that are actually organized by that player, then the dynamics are very similar to being listed in 10 bars and having bartenders supporting your brand, you know? Yeah. A 100%. And doing an event into the bar, you know, it's almost like instead of focusing on the channels, it's about focusing on the way you want to interact with, with the shopper in that sense, you know, and then it doesn't matter actually where you are.

If you can play with the same kind of like dynamics. So it can be a farmer's markets, it can be a supermarkets organized food show. It can be, you know, many different things that actually can mimic the dynamics that historically has been attributed to the on trade and to the liquid on lips kind of, approach.

Again, we benefit from that because, like, we're an Anglo Italian business, right? And and so my business partners, one of them, they, their Irish is English pretty decent, actually. The other one, not so much, but, like, they didn't even really speak English and, you know, they're very, very Italian and, and I'm very, very British. And that worked in ways that we really didn't expect because in your country, like people that the idea of a chain of bars or a chain of restaurants or a chain of anything is like a little bit like, we don't like chains, you know, like, yeah. And, and whereas in The UK, we're so kind of shaped by marketing trends that like a chain is a, is, it's always a good thing, basically.

You know, the, the sort of combination of having my business partners appreciation of like kind of grassroots wine culture and my understanding of of, you know, the Anglo Saxon way of life just kind of creates opportunities for us that we would not have found in in, you know, in another context, you know?

It goes back to trust. No? I mean, all all brands choices and all things are actually like driven by trust. In, in Italy, I think it's more, you know, the trust element is done by the, is played by the family that owns the restaurant. So, know, the family, they've been in the neighborhood, they've been doing that thing for a while.

But in a, in, in, in Brisbane, for example, the pubs used to have that kind of element. And then by, by developing, then the, the chain becomes the trusted boys that, that you have because at some point is, if you go to another city and you don't know anybody, then you see the dead logo and then you say, okay, actually I know that restaurant chain from my hometown and I trust them. So probably they have the same kind of approach and the same care about, you know, people and ingredients and stuff. So let let's go there, you know? So it's interesting how, how those things play.

And what I'm in the middle of doing right now is I'm creating a course and I'm standardizing my trainings. And I'm actually creating these steps that I, that I'm calling one bottle, one case, one palette, you know, and this is the journey of a brand. And, and in fact, you know, there is the, the independent side of things first, you know, the friends and family and independent, then there's the groups, what you're exactly saying, you know, the groups and chains. And then the modern trade is playing the role like on the, on the back of that, you know, because then it's the other step before the export kind of environment. No, but I'm trying to visualize it for founders to think like, okay, like what are the step, what are the consequential steps in how your thinking has to change when you're engaging with different kind of players.

And also even within the off trades, when you're talking to different you know, we now work with, you know, different retailers across The UK, not just Wechoice, work with Sainsbury's, work with ASDA, work with Ocado, and they all have very, very different ways of, of operating as well. But I think, you know, in, in terms of your bottom up approach, the way that that applies is that the appeal of a supermarket chain for your brand is incredible because overnight you will launch, the general will launch you into say 300 stores, right? That's huge jump in distribution for a brand like us, but

it

will just sit there on the shelf because, you know, if you're a small brands, you don't have that top of funnel kind of branded people don't know who you are, and they will just walk straight past you. You know, and then that is a, you know, a huge disadvantage compared to the the entree because there is nobody to recommend it or to help you. You know, the supermarket staff will not have I mean, the the big difference actually between waiters, you know, waiters have beer, wine, and drink specialists that will have tried most of what they sell. Right? So there is some scope to recommend the product.

The others are not like that. You've got to build appeal based on your your point on trust, the ratings on the the website's incredibly important. Each supermarket has its own e commerce offering, of course, and you have to look at the rating on that because people will not look at if you're shopping in Sainsbury's, you don't look at Vivino to sort of look at the quality of the wine. You look at the reviews by Sainsbury's customers. You have to make sure that you are addressing that piece properly.

Right?

You know, one of the things that I discuss a lot is, is the fact that you have to grow this, you know, you have to grow rate of sale while building distribution, you because otherwise, you know, you're entering this kind of like vicious circle. On LinkedIn, I call it the six bottles in one bar is better than one bottle in each bar for six bars. You know, this is usually one of those posts that I get, like all the challenges now. And then, you know, there's the lovers and haters is a little bit like, it's the coriander kind of post, you know, like that's really, yeah, of course it's six bottles in one bar. And then the other guy's like, no, you cannot do that.

You know? But for me, it's a mindset kind of thing. No. And also going back to what she was talking about, the, the the bottom up, like I'm I'm I'm not trying to exemplify what what I mean by bottom up. No.

And it's it's more like a mentality. It doesn't have like a fixed rules. It's just like your kind of like challenger thinking that you need to be always, mindful of. No, but you know, the, one of the biggest challenges of being listed in supermarket chain as, as you rightly say, is that it's not only about getting listed, it's about staying listed, you know, because that is the big challenge for brands. So how, how do you manage to do that?

And, and, and for example, you know, like I'm, I'm, my experience has been mainly on trade, you know, I've worked with supermarket chains, but never in a buyer, you know, seller kind of relationship. So, so for example, like, do they give you room for a limited amount of stores in the beginning because some chains do that now. So I don't know like how some chains are managing this, you know, like for example, in Sweden, when I lived in Sweden in, in system blog, it's the off trade channel, the, the, the, the state monopoly, you know, they give you an sets of, you know, a listing. And then if you perform well, then they extend the distribution to a wider number. No?

How does it work and how has it worked, let's say for you in the journey of growing from, for example, from Waitrose to the early days of Waitrose, for example, to move into the next chain and growing distribution across modern trade.

In The UK, supermarkets works in quite a similar way actually to the Swedish monopoly, in that you generally will launch into a small subset of stores. They will give you a target rate of sale. If you hit that rate of sale, you know, you eventually grow your distribution until the point that you end up in the whole estate. So in Waitrose, we're in every store, including all the convenience stores. In Sainsbury's Last Day, we are not.

The challenge for a challenger brand, if you like, is you will not launch in a Central London convenience store. Yeah. You will launch in a provincial town. Right? And and that for you, you know, you're trying to sell a paper wine bottle to somebody.

Like, what you want to do is you want to be in, in Shoreditch or Islington or, or Battersea, you know, where, green party activists will come and buy your wine because good for the environment, you know? And instead you launch in Sainsbury's and I'm not gonna choose to shame a regional town of The UK, but you, you launch somewhere you don't wanna launch. Right. And, and, and so you have the challenge to build a rate of sale with people who are not your target consumer. And what we've done, there's a couple of things we had to do actually, you know, one, we worked very, very hard on the way our listings presented and, and promoted within the, within the stores.

And we've done very limited marketing. We've never done out of home advertising, for example, and some sort of did digital advertising. That's it. But what one significant change we made actually to our, to our brand is because obviously the history of branding in wine is not as strong as it is in, in beer or spirits. And you've got the other thing.

The thing that resonates with consumers is like the grape type. Right? And if you look at the market in, in a way we started off, we're an Italian specialist. So we wanted to shift showcase all the incredible variety of grapes that are across Italy, Falangina, Allianico, all these beautiful types. But people like you, you can't sell these, these, it's, they don't move.

You know, if you're in a forget it. You know, if you're in an independent wine store or a wine bar or an Italian restaurant, then you will do very well with these grapes. If you are in a a national supermarket I mean, I'll give you a stat. Right? So I think the wallet of for Italian, wine in The UK, I think The UK spends nearly £1,000,000,000 a year on Italian wine varietals.

Right? And about 400,000,000 of that is on Pinot Grigio. So if you end selling Pinot Grigio, you've got a mountain to climb in in terms of recognition. Right? At red wine, the equivalent is Primitivo.

Over time, we've grid we've graduated to sort of very good examples of much more familiar Italian grapes because that's what people are looking for. So if you look at the branding on our cans, you know, Pinot Grigio is actually more prominent than the, the one in Rome because Pinot Grigio is much better known than when in Rome. So we put the grape type first on our cans actually, which is quite unusual, but that's the way we've, you know, we chose to be a grape lead. And over the time we've kind of consolidated down the variety of deals that we sell because that is what people are looking for. Like over time, we'd like to think that our, with us, our brand becomes more prominent, better known that we could probably venture back into some of those grape types because that's what we like to do.

You know, it's from, from our hearts, what we would want to do, but people don't know what they're buying and they won't buy them.

I hear you there because those are actually the grape wines from my father.

I did. Yes.

That was very impressive. And every time I try, you know, like I try to bring a bottle to a friend and so on and then, you know, or I mention it and and and they're like, you know, crickets. Maybe you get lucky, you know, like with some of them, but it's pretty rare that they hear it. So but it's it's very interesting. And and what what you were saying about the provincial town listing, you know, it's also like quite counterintuitive.

No? Because, you know, automatically you start from the bigger cities, no. So I would understand it from, you know, if you are from a certain region, you know, that you are producing in that region. And then I would understand that they give you the listing on that particular, you know, rural area or smaller town kind of thing. But that makes it super complicated.

And do do you have a say in in the choice of that provincial town or No. Or or actually just like, okay, we give you No,

I mean, we've actually got lucky. So we're, we're based in Stroud in Gloucestershire, which is this self proclaimed eco capital of The UK. And, and each time we've gained a listing, we've ended up getting listed in, in, in the, in the local branches of that supermarket. And, but that's just by luck, you know, and, and, and they've consistently, the Stroud branch outperforms, you know, in rate of sale terms because people know who we are. We're a local employer, albeit a very small one, but we are, we're a local business.

So that's kind of helped us, but no, generally, I mean, I'll tell you what really resonated me. I've listened to Nick from Mangrove talking and he's like, you know, occasionally I'll work with a brand that's just like, yes, just do it. I love it because it's just a great brand for his business to survive. He needs brands to thrive. He needs brands that just sell.

Right. And then just, they just work. And and and so you've got that mix. And and I think with us, there's a little bit of both because, you know, when we go to a supermarket at UK, like we'd like to think we're offering them something that they don't have because, you know, we are a brand that is focused on low carbon packaging formats, on decarbonizing viticulture. We open the doors generally.

We lead with our environmental credentials because, you know, supermarkets need to reduce their scope three carbon emissions, and we can help them do that significantly. Right? So that's the kind of let's do it part. They're like, we like these guys. They're like eco friendly.

They've got good, good heart, but at the same time, like there's no way I'm gonna launch them in our prime Central London spots because like this, that shelf space is very, very expensive. So to get there, you've got to prove it, you know, and, and speaking in all honesty, we've proved that in Waitrose, you know, we think we're probably the best selling Cam wine brand in, in that supermarket chain and in the other UK supermarket chains where we're selling, like we're, we're, we're not at that point yet. We need more money because, you know, as you as you're working capital requirement grows too, and then you don't have funds for marketing and then you need more investment to be able to grow the recognition. And and so that's how it Yeah. The the theory continues.

It's super fascinating what you're talking about because there's two elements. Like one is the sustainability element that I'm gonna talk about in a second, but the first one is also like going back to the distribution rate of sale kind of yin and yang of distribution. I think Nick was mentioning that in the, you know, previous episode that that he was saying that, you know, you get the the leap of faith, you know, from the buyer, you know, like it's like, Rob is a great guy. He's a charming guy. Like, I I wanna give him a chance, know, like, he's a great guy.

Like, I I really believe in their, you know, products. So there's this, there's the, let's say the foot in the door, which is the buyer that could say yes or no to any brand. And sometimes you have the buyer that says no to you, but actually the market would have been ready for your brand. It's just that the buyer is the judge, you know, it's the judgment day, but he says no. But on the other side so it's like, okay.

I'll I'll try another day, you know? But then the most kinda like interesting and fascinating and dangerous game is when the other thing happens so that the judge says yes. So the buyer takes that leap of faith, but then the market is not ready for it. And then you don't manage to to reach that rate of sale level that is required by the market because that particular region where you have been listed is not ready for your brand. And then basically like it becomes this kind of strange situation where you actually celebrated that you got in, but then you actually don't manage to stay again.

You know? Probably you have some experience on this with, you know, with some listings or like probably like, you know, some regions are performing better than other regions and so on, but it's the ultimate test of the market, you you need to have the cash in the bank to follow-up on that growth, you know, and that becomes the kind of like the catch 22 or the vicious circle. Now that you get the listing, you maybe get the rate of sale. You, if you get the rate of sale, the orders grow, you know, the cash involved upfront for that grow, you know, like has to grow. So you need more funding and then you enter this like, you know, like this noble effect.

So what's your take on that one? I mean, I don't want to ask you for, you know, specific, you know, you as a brand, because those are like even confidential things, but more like what is the state of the industry in that, in that terms, you know, when you talk to other players as well, and when you have discussions in, you know, with buyers and colleagues on fueling that growth and, and so on.

Well, I would contrast our experience actually, if I look at the different formats. So, wine in cans is relatively established part of the industry now, you've got fillers of different sizes and scales, and you can make a palette of wine, a palette of canned wine, you know, or you can make thousands and thousands of, you know, hundreds of thousands of high speed at, at sort of, at different, very different margins. Right? And then at the same time in UK retail, that is a, that is a fast growing segment now. And if you look at the way canned alcohol is, is sold now in The UK off trade, you're generally on a sort of four for three multi save type offer.

So you go in, you can maybe get, you know, an egg granny, gin and tonic, and two counts of wine, get a discount, right? Or a couple of beers, couple of wines. Yeah. That's the way it's that category is just booming. It's absolutely booming.

The paper wine bottle, ours, that's been very different experience because the infrastructure, you know, we had to persuade a wine filler to invest money to adapt to a filling line to help us fill. And of course, at that point, you can't negotiate hard on price, so that affects your margin. And then you appear on the shelf in a supermarket and you're like, oh my God, we've listed we're the first brand in the world to list a paper wine bottle in a supermarket, you know? And and that that that's the the cartwheel moment you're talking about, blah blah blah blah. And then you're like, right.

And now we've gotta persuade people to buy this and we are the only brand in this packaging. Right? And and in the wine industry, which is not receptive to new packaging. So when we're asking for funding from investors and they're like, well, you know, what are you gonna do? If other wine brands start selling wine in paper bottles, I'm like, I would love that because, you know, we want people to buy our wine because they like our brand and they like our liquid, right?

Not because of the container. The container is there to save carbon, right? And, and to, and to reduce the climate impacts of our, of our, of our business and, and, you know, and, and therefore slow down global warming, right? Like there's not a way to, we want people to buy it just because it's in a make up bottle. If you're part of a category that is growing, then it's a rising tide lifts all ships.

Right? So if there's other wine brands alongside,

absolutely.

Then people are making a choice between a straightforward brand choice rather than a, this is a glass bottle, this is a paper bottle, like what the hell is this? You know? So whilst, you know, I guess that's true of any innovation in any industry, you know? The wine can piece has been a joy to be part of. The paper bottle has been incredibly rewarding, but very, really hard work.

That's all for today. Remember that this is

a two part episode seventy five and seventy six. Feel free to listen to both. One last thing, if you enjoy this podcast, please leave a review, share it with friends, and remember that brands are built bottom up.