076 | Rob Malin | Navigating the Role of Sustainability in the Drinks Industry | When in Rome

Welcome to the Maffeo Drinks Podcast. I'm your host, Chris Maffeo. In episode 76, we continue the conversation with Rob Malin from episode 75. We delve into the complexities of incorporating sustainability into a wine brand selling story. We talk about the impact of consumer trends and government legislation on brand growth and discover strategies for balancing traditional wine marketing with innovative sustainable practices.

I hope you will enjoy our chat. If you enjoy this podcast, please take the time to leave a review on Spotify or Apple Podcast. You can also check out muffeddrinks.com where you can subscribe to my mini guides on Substack or download my new digital course on how to bootstrap a drinks brand. It's also like to the second point that I left pending on the sustainability, know, and the fact that how you use that into your selling story, you know, in that sense. Because, you know, I think about this

a lot and I talk with many players and many, many customers, you know, and, something that I'm that I'm talking about is I I call

it the the selling ring road. You need to select which roads you're taking to enter the city, you know, to reach that customer. And then imagine like all the roads that get into the Grande La Corridor. You want to play, you know, you've got, you know, packaging, you've got provenance, you've got sustainability, you got, you know, you got different kinds of elements that you can play with into that selling story, you know, and you need to be able to highlight certain things with more or less acceleration on that kind of topic. Because if you see that the, let's say the sustainability is not really a play, then you focus on the Pinot Grigio, you know, and then if the Pinot Grigio, you see that it's very crowded because the guy has got already like seven Pinot Grigio, then you downplay the Pinot Grigio and you play more on the kind of packaging that you have or maybe a lot another kind of elements that you have in your range.

But how does sustainability play a role for you? And also like, what do you think in general, like for other brands, you know, how do they play with sustainability? And what I mean by this question is that sometimes brands are not clear on what they want to do and they just play on the sustainability. And I was like, I'm a sustainable brand. And then it ends.

If you are the first, then it's enough because then you may be the only sustainable brand on the shelf. But then when the cake gets bigger and then they start to be like ten, fifteen players that are sustainable, then how do you adjust that messaging, you know, to make sure that actually you talk about other aspects and not only only that?

Yeah. What I've learned over the years and obviously as a brand that is, you know, as a as a brand that's growing and requires investment to grow, you know, investors look for two things, right? They look for consumer trends and they look at government legislation, right? So that these are the two things capable of shifting the market massively, right? One is just what, you know, what appeals to consumers.

So we want to appeal to consumers based on the fact that our wines are, you know, from a, you know, one of the world's great wine producing nations. They're good examples of those local wines. You know, when in Rome, people know what that means in English speaking markets. And, and we want to appeal to them that sort of emotional connection that consumers have to Italy, which is frankly quite underexploited in The UK. And if you look at the top alcohol brands in The UK, in the top 50 brands, there's not a single Italian wine brand.

And that sort of shows you how poorly that industry has failed to sort of realize its potential, you know, in my, in my opinion. So on the one hand, you've got that kind of, you know, you love Italy, you know, you should, you should drink our wines because we, we love it too. And the sustainability piece is like, you know, endless consumer surveys will tell you that when you ask a consumer, are you prepared to spend more on sustainable brand? And they say yes, you know, now I, I, I think that is true only in a very small amount of purchasing decisions. Like we do not believe that more than a small single figures percentage of, of, of our customer base are buying our products because they're green.

You know, they're buying them because a can is a good format to take on a train or to a picnic. A paper bottle is a good format for a rock concert or a sports event. A bag in box is good if you are a single person living at home and you want a glass of wine every day, you know? This primary drivers in terms of format, and then they like our brand because within that space, you know, we sell good liquid at good value. Where sustainability comes in for us is opening opportunities with buyers because they know that they have to produce their emissions, their scope three emissions.

We we measure our carbon footprint. We work with a business called Carbon Cloud. We are the only wine brand in The UK that publishes the climate impact of our products on the consumer packaging. Right? But it's not for the consumer because the consumer doesn't know what that means yet.

It's a statement to our commercial partners that we are serious about reducing their carbon footprint. But to your point about like, you know, other brands playing on sustainability. So we've talked a lot to a business called Oatleaf makes some oat milk and they also use the same Swedish company that we do to audit their carbon footprint. And the Oakleaf is always saying to the dairy industry, come on guys, like here is our climate footprint for our oat milk. Let's let's talk about the climate footprint of your, of your cow's milk, right?

They never will because it's multiple times higher. So for us with, with the wine brands, as we say, well, we're sustainable. Here are our numbers. Here is full radical climate transparency for you. And, and for legacy wine brands, it's very hard to compete with because as long as they're making 97% of their profits from wine in glass bottles, it's automatically gonna be 50% higher than us.

So it's really hard for them to compete because they can't necessarily talk about the benefits of the formats we use because it's much better for the environment than the formats that they use.

I can imagine. I really don't like consumer research in general, you know, because I think that many of them can be very, very biased. I've I've been working in sites, know, like, and for me, the way you ask the question leads to a certain answer. It's like if if you ask me, you know, why did you buy this canned wine? Is it because it's convenient or is it because it's better for the environment?

Of course, you know, I know what I'm gonna answer, you know? So what I'm thinking about is the fact that there's limited amounts of people that really do choose packaging in my opinion, like for, for a sustainability choice, you know, but then to make a huge impact, then you need to drive that at mainstream level, So you the the average Joe must understand what it means for the sustainability and then you need to make it relevant for them. No? So another thing that I never really like anymore is the fact that, you know, brands often have got this kind of like target consumers in mind. No.

And for me, I'm all about the target occasion. So for me, there's no single person wanted a single brand. It's more like a specific person wanting a specific brand. It's more like there is a repertoire of brands that I buy. And depending on the occasion, depending on what I feel like, I'm choosing them.

No. But in your experience, because I'm sure you've got like data also on your website and, and, and so on. Do you see that there is a specific demographic, for example, that is involved into your brand or is very varied because like, are you reaching more type of consumer than the green activist kind of people or like the people that really put in sustainability at the center of everything they do?

I completely agree about the Target occasion. That couldn't be more true of our brand actually, because our distribution in The UK is, is no, it's not, not complete. We're a small business. So we can reach Waitrose customer because we're in every Waitrose. We can reach a percentage of Sainsbury's customers because we're a percentage of their stores and same with Astor.

The average, the profile of a consumer at these places is very, very different. Know, it certainly Waitrose consumers tend to be a little bit more affluent and probably have the luxury of being able to buy something that is more and more environmentally sustainable. The rest of The UK, like in many countries, we've just been through a cost of living crisis. It's starting to ease and, you know, you've gotta worry about how you're gonna pay your rent, not, you know, what is the climate impact of what you're buying? What we sort of said that if, if our brands can charge a modest grenium as it were and, and, and survive a cost of living crisis, then we've definitely got a promising, promising future.

But, but overwhelming, as you say, you know, people, it's about getting access to, to, to consumers. Right? So, you know, if we're doing the wine for a cold plate, then everybody at that concert, most strict wine is drinking our wine and we don't know who they are. And they're certainly not buying because it's environmentally friendly. They're buying because it is available there at a reasonable price, at least in a container that they can take anywhere they like within the, in the venue.

So in that respect, we're not targeting greed consumers, but there are hardcore of people that bias for that reason, you know, and, and we sort of have to be faithful to those people. Otherwise we will totally undermine what we're doing.

Absolutely. But those people, they don't belong to a specific demographic, you know, they could be from 20 year old or the 55 year olds, like it doesn't really belong to a specific category because the reason why I was asking the question is also because I read a lot of reports and articles about everybody are talking about Gen Z these days, know, for example. They talk about the fact that they are scared of wine because that's been played as a old money kind of game that, you know, younger consumers don't really understand. And many players, especially in The States, for example, like they are playing on that kind of wave now because they say, actually I want to make the packaging easier to understand. I want to make it more approachable than what the traditional players have been.

No. I wanted to understand from you when you have like a pretty straightforward packaging in mind, or is it, is it just like one of the elements that is about, it's a different packaging, it's cans or it's boxes, and you can play with different kind of information on that box and on that packaging. And then automatically, you know, you are talking about different things than the older players are are talking about.

So in terms of the way you can present your brand, and by the way, you know, actually many spirits brands use this paper wine bottle that have done so very, very effectively. And, and, and they tell a story very, very well on the packaging that the total surface area of the can is probably not much more different to the size of the paper label on a, on a glass wine bottle. So in terms of your space to appeal to the consumer for the can space, it's quite similar, but it's also, you know, what we've done differently is that we are a brand and we're not ashamed to be a wine brand. We have long term partnerships with producers in Italy, but we are not a chateau or a cantina, you know, and that we don't want to be, you know, because the wine industry, as you know, Chris is let's it's handicapped by lots of crazy regulations of what you can and can't call things, you know, and we're competing against, I don't know, like, know, I won't name it, but there's a supposedly Spanish beer brand in The UK that is brewed by an American company in the North Of England, never touched Spanish lips in its entire history as a brand.

They could call it what they like, because there isn't any regulations in the beer industry. All about marketing. You do whatever you like, you know, whereas, you know, we have constant difficulties in what we can and can't call our products, because you know, anything that in Italy, any Italian wines, DOC will lose its denomination if it goes into account. So we can't call it Chianti or Brunel Di Montacino. You have to call it

Ro

Rosso Toscano, you know? And, and so you've got constantly these issues. And, and so for us, we're like, well, okay, well, if we go for one in Rome and we build a really strong Italian brand, over time, you know, while we can go into different varietals, but also like what the wine is actually called is it doesn't really matter, you know, because they'll recognize our brand. And, and the wine industry is quite unusual in, in the industry to, to take that approach because people are so attached to the sort of historical traditions in the industry, which, you know, not to be ignored. It's obviously wonderful for us that we're in the same industry as as as bottle of wine itself for €10,000, but that's not where our target consumer is at.

It makes me

think like what you were saying, because it it makes me think about all these enoteca, for example, in Italy, you know. I grew up with having them in the neighborhood now, like many of them. And I remember you're going for dinner to someone and then you'll get a bag from that enoteca, you know, like the wine shop. So you automatically know that, you know, if I come to your place and I bring you a bottle with that bag automatically, you know, it's, it's a good wine that I made an effort. I didn't go to a random store downstairs from your place to buy something.

You know, I, I, I went to someone who is a curator of wines. And if you think about it, I mean, what you, what you said earlier is striking like that there's no wine brand that is actually, you know, making up there the most valuable brands because if you think about it, it's true. I mean, it makes sense because, know, there's, there's so many things at play that there is no one that actually managed to to get this kind of like country domination. So what you are doing is very interesting because you are becoming that kind of role that an Enoteca would play in that sense because it's like, okay, then I know that it's a wine in Rome wine. So whatever that is, if it's a Primitivo or a Falanghina or a Pinot Grigio, I trust it because it's been selected by them.

And if I liked two out of three of their previous experiences, then probably I'm gonna like the fourth one and the fifth one. Or maybe it may not be my taste kind of like profile, but I still trust them that it's it's a good one. So I may bring it for dinner to a friend that I know loves that kind

of That is that is exactly what we see in in our sales statistics over time. Right? So as I said, a huge proportion is why we sell as Pinot Grigio because we've got, okay, we've already gotta sell wine in a packaging people aren't used to, be that a paper bottle, a bag in box, or a can. It's a brand that maybe, you know, we're new at a supermarket that never heard of us. At least, at least let's have a pinaigrette that people, you know, know what that, what that is.

Right? But then in supermarkets, let's just say we sell a pinaigrette can and also Ecorino, which, you know, everybody in UK thinks is a cheese. It's a great cheese. But, yeah, there's also a wide group of Ecorino. Now we'll see that the rate of sale of pinovrigo is always better, always higher on the same, you know, sort of on a like for like basis, but the pecorino over time starts to come up like that because people go, well, I've tried this Pina Grigio from money room.

That's nice. And what is this Pecorino? I would try that too. We have statistics that show that, that not many, and we'd like them to be more, but that's kind of exactly what we aim to do over time is to sort of, you know, educate people, you know, with about what's, going on in Italian wine industry by, okay, here's what I wrote, pinaigrette, it's three pounds in a can. If you like it, then here's a pecorino too.

And by the way, you know, you ever tried an Italian Rose? Probably not. You should try Arrozato because, know, did you trust the brass?

I love this because also like when you when I think of, let's say, your position like in in, you know, being listed in many modern trade chains, you know, you've got access to data, which is a bit of a luxury in the on trade now because it's so it's more like a kind of like a gut feels and, you know, like guesstimates kind of, kind of thing. But you know, like when you do that, then it, it can give you so many insights and it can also, you know, and you can also use it to put the foot in the door in other, other, other chains and other stores. If we go back to the previous question that I was asking about the sustainability aspect, you what's the state of the industry in terms of sustainability, you know, like, do you think that many brands are putting that forward? I feel many brands are, when I, when I talk to people is like, we are the first sustainable brand on blah, blah, blah, or we are the first founder, blah, blah, blah. Very often I see brands that are pushing forward the I'm the first at kind of thing rather than actually substantiating it with a big bulk of information.

As I said, we we we lead on our appeal as as as good quality, crowd pleasing wines from Italy. Right. And then we're very, very sort of clear that that is, that is why you should be buying our wine because you wanna buy into the, you know, the emotional experience of, of drinking a nice glass of wine in, in a, in a country that is universally adored across Europe and the rest of the world. Right. But in terms of the sustainability, I mean, the wider industry is a funny one because actually in the, in the viticulture, the viticulture space is pioneering a lot of, you know, really interesting sort of techniques for, for reducing its carbon footprint.

So the wide industry at the production level is very focused on sustainability, but we're also obsessed with glass bottles and that creates a huge handicap because, you know, if you have tried to tell the consumer you're a you're a you're a sustainable brand, you then, well, how do you reconcile that with knowingly doubling the carbon footprint of what you're doing by putting it in a glass bottle? Because you don't have enough faith in your product to think that anyone's gonna buy it in any other container. So you're sort of handicapped and it makes it really hard to do that, that message. If so for example, you know, the irony people go, I don't wanna buy bag in box wine because it's it's it's bulk, you know, and you're like, well, do you realize that probably 95% of Australian wine sold in The UK comes is shipped in bulk to a port from Australia to The UK and is bottled in The UK. So, you know, you, that's that's exactly the same thing.

And actually that's very, very good for the environment to ship wine like that in bulk. But like the wine industry, they won't tell you that because people will be like, oh, it's bulk wine, not buying it. And so we don't have enough faith in our own products. I think just tell consumers how sustainable we are. I think this is, this is our, as our handicap, you know?

And so actually the wide industry doesn't push it down consumers' throats in the way that many other industries do because like one, which is not very good at pocketing, but two, we just don't have enough fear. We, too anxious that consumer perception about containers, for example, will, will undermine our, our rate of sale. And so we're sort of stuck in a bit of a vicious circle in that respect.

That's very true because for example, I mean, have a good friend of mine. He's one of my best friends. And in Rome and he's very much into, for example, biodynamic wines. And with him, I tried many bra many, many wines that were, you know, biodynamic wines, but they were like tape table wines, know, Vino de Tavola, just like regular wines in a bagging box. Yeah.

For example. And he was like, when when I saw it at his place, you know, like, and I know how fixated he is with quality and so on. I I looked at the packaging and the first time I saw it, was like, that's that. You know? Like, are are you giving me a wine from

the box?

You know? But to me, what I mean by this is that there is like a lot of education that must be done to consumers, you know, because automatically, otherwise they default to the, okay, it's in a box. It's low quality cheap wine, you know, which is not, you know. Same thing is like when when you were talking about bulk, I used to work in beer and, you know, Pilsen and Uruquil, it's shipped in bulk. I mean, if you, if you see the truck that is doing the unpasteurized pilsner ukule, mean, it's a truck that looks like a fuel tank, you know, like with a, with a huge pie filling up the tank beers in the pub, you know?

Are you complaining about it? Is it low quality because it has been shipped in bulk? No, not really. And then would you have to push it then into a bottle, into a glass bottle so that then now it's a bottle beer and now it's better than a can beer. There is a lot about that historically glass has always been perceived as different.

And there are some categories in which, you know, you can play. I mean, if, if you look at, for example, like carbonation, obviously, I mean, it's different, you know, like if you drink like a Coca Cola in a glass bottle is different than in a, than in a plastic bottle. But that is also due to the carbonation effect, you know, like how much the, the core can hold the carbonation. You know, there's other things in play. It's not just like the actual packaging.

So there is a lot of things that when you dig and you dive into it, then you understand why certain things are better, which leads to another point from me that is that is about the importance of education to consumers, to trade. What role does that play for your brand when you are talking about when in Rome?

Back to your earlier point actually about being occasion focused, right? If you're occasion let's imagine that, you know, you're on that train. We've talked about the Friday evening train from London to Edinburgh, four and a half hour journey. You go to a little waitrose in Kings Cross Station instead of buying, you know, like a sandwich and a warm beer, like you probably would've done in the 1980s, you get a really nice fresh sushi platter and a chilled can of Wedder Road Pinaigrette. And you, you, you have that on the train home and like, that is a really, that's a really pleasant experience actually compared to what you would have had ten years ago.

It's a, it's a joyful experience. If we're an Italian brand, like we want to bring joy into people's lives. We don't want to spoil. We don't want us to preach and say like, shouldn't be drinking wine in glass bottles because as, as you know, Chris, this, that many occasion, if you wanna keep wine and sell, if your grandchildren needs to be in a glass bottle, there's many reasons why wine is sold in glass bottles. We're not trying to eliminate that nor do we want to spoil the ceremony of somebody opening up, you know, a really high quality bottle of Prosecco, you know, at a at a wedding.

We're just saying that for sort of everyday consumption, it is better for the environment to drink wine in low carbon packaging formats. There's no reason why you need to double the footprint of your products by putting in a glass bottle. And, and you should not be ashamed or embarrassed to tell the cons, to tell the consumer that because it's common sense and it's, it's not, it's not preaching, you know? And actually the retailers have a big role to play in this. They've done very, very well.

You know, we, we look at the fact that waitrose spend a lot of time and money explaining to consumers why they eliminated small glass bottles and put wine in cans. So we do the wine for British airways as well. British airways also on their menu explain why they're selling wine in cans and not glass bottles. Because of course the carbon saving of a pack of a lightweight packaging in the air is much greater than on the ground. Like actually the carbon saving in those planes is, is much greater.

And, and they have explained the consumer why they're doing it, but it's, you know, it's in the corner of the app. It's not saying buy this wine because if you don't, we're all gonna die. You know, it's like buy this wine because it's great and looks great. And here's a picture of our can with a nice sandwich. And by the way, this is why we sell wine in caps.

And like, that's the way it needs to be done. And there are some shiny examples of how this is done in the industry, like, not, not just from our brands, and from our retail partners, from others too, but it's still very small.

That's how I I discovered your brand actually. When I was flying back from London, a couple of months ago on on a British Airways flight, and then I saw went in Rome and then it struck me because I was like, wow, this is a cool brand. It should be Roman myself. But it goes back to what I was saying earlier. Now the fact that one thing is to mention it as a by the way kind of thing.

And one thing is smashing it on the face of every single conversation. Yep. No? So what I like about this concept that I'm, you know, still refining, selling ring roads is that, you know, it depends where you are. It's exactly the same like like occasions.

Know? If I'm with my wife, I want to have some wine, you know, I don't need to uncork especially, you know, if it's a Monday night kind of, you know, like we just want to have a glass each, you know, but if I'm in a fancy dinner with interesting people and I want to uncork like a aged bottle of Barolo, then of course it's another story. And it's the same thing with when you were explaining your brand, you know, like if you are in a setting when sustainability is at, is at the core of that conversation, then of course you're talking about the fact that you are a sustainable product, you know, but then like by mentioning that, you know, directly all the time, then all of a sudden it's like, yeah, but what about the actual product inside? You know, I

know, I

know you are sustainable, but I want to want to want to know it's it's actually a good wine that I'm drinking. It's it's an interesting debate on where do you draw the line and how do you play with different kind of people and different kind of, like, of your storytelling, you know, in, in this?

Yeah. It's a really hard balance to strike actually, you know, and again, as a, as a small brands with limited marketing resource, we probably should be more consistent in our messaging over, over time. We're so proud of our sustainability that we probably over broadcast that a little bit because it's actually the job of some, you know, our, our, our retail partners are really the people that can make a difference over time to that because, you know, they are so trusted. I mean, the, The UK supermarkets are so, so much more trusted as brands than a relatively small wine brand like us, that they will be able to resonate with consumers.

They've got a

role to educate them, you know? And, and frankly, that that's a quite a dry messaging that needs to be conveyed, right? And, and they have done a really good job of communicating that to consumers. And then it's for us to come in and go, well, you know, you, we want you to buy our products because, because it tastes great. By the way, you know, you are helping reduce the climate impact of what you're doing.

I mean, we're also being really honest about it, right? Mean, that the fact is idiot, it does, it does have a climate impact and we've, we've got work to do on reducing it. Like, you know, your friend, you know, we don't employ biodynamic viticulture, for example, we have work to do to work with our producers to kind of, to reduce the climate impact of the viticulture, because that for us is the largest piece of the climate impact that we do. And again, you know, but consumers don't want to know that you are installing agrivoltaic panels above the grapes. It's not an interest to them.

You know, it's the, what they want to do is to, to know that the ones that taste great and give them, yeah, a little bit of joy on the way home, you know, on that trade to Edinburgh.

That's why for me, it's about, like, who you're talking to, what you say to whom Yeah. Kind of thing. No? And and, of course, like, in the, in those elements that are kind of like at scale, like a website or you know, like a social media page, you know, like then that's more of a one size fits all kind of approach because you need to pick one, you know, you cannot talk about

all the things at the same time,

you know, but then like, it's interesting to see like when, and, and this is, let's say it's more like for me on focusing much more on the bottom up trades, all the, all the independent side of things, then those kind of conversation happen at much higher scale because you are talking to 10 different people during the same day, you know, like it's not one body air for 100 stores, it's, it's, you know, it's one person for one bar kind of thing. And then that's where you also kinda like learn to master it, you know, because then it's like, okay, like now I am, you know, I look at the back bar, I look at the things, I look at the setting, I look at the menu, I look at the person and then I listen, I shut up and listen to that person and then I start to understand, you know, what are the inputs that this person is more interested in, which doesn't mean that I have to hide the other ones, but at least I can overemphasize, you know, the stuff that we agree on rather than all the other thing, all the other seven things that we actually do.

Wrapping up and going back to the initial initial part, like if you went back to the beginning, would you start from the on trade? You know, would you play a would you allow, let's say the on trade to get a bigger role of, of your channel strategy or, or would you actually still do it the same way

as you did it? I mean, the answer is I, I, I said, of course I would do things stiff. There's a lot, not just, not just the sales strategy, I do differently, Chris, but I do lots of things differently, you know? Like, but any, any entrepreneur will tell you what I'm saying, you know, and going back to a more fundamental question is if, if I'd realize how hard it would be to start my own business, would I have had the courage to do it? You know, that's a, that's another question as well.

However, the answer is yes to your question. I didn't, I didn't have the courage to

ask Christine. I didn't have the courage to

ask I mean, no regrets because you never have any regrets in life, but would I have had the courage to do that? I'm not sure. You know? In terms of the entree piece though, yeah, I mean, like, I can give you a really silly example of how that where can can wine has done really well in The UK, like both for us and for others has been theater bars. Because theater bars, they have this huge rush in the interval.

Right? And for canned wine, that is speed of service. Like, rather than having to pour a glass, you just go, here's a glass, here's a cap. Right? And so not only does that, you know, massively increase speed of service, but you've also giving people for the first time and here because, like, does anyone remember the brand of Sauvignon Blanc they had in this, in the theater at the interval?

Of course they don't. Whereas if they, if they've got a cam, then they can read the brand, they can read the brand story. Right? So that is an opportunity for the theater and for the Cam Wide brands. Right?

Now, when we started, we weren't in, in can't. So that, that, that, that opportunity wasn't there, but yeah, you're quite right. I mean, as I said, like a large part of the way our sales strategy was formed was by my own naivety. You know, I I've not come into the drinks industry from the, from, you know, I'd have a drinks industry background. I can see brands that have, you know, especially people that have worked themselves in the entrees that then go into the drinks industry.

They do things very differently to, to us. And we've sort of learned the halfway actually, whilst all of our retail partners, like they are great partners for us. I think probably thanks to our green credentials, like we'd been thrown bones that we might not have been where we're just a more conventional business, you know? So we've been allowed to make more mistakes because we are help helping them reduce their climate footprint. They've been kinder to us as a partner.

They've kind of suffered our naivety as it were. But yeah, if I if I did things differently again, I would certainly have have paid more attention to the On Trade right from the start.

What you're talking about is is something that I that I call in other, you know, episodes and some posts, like I call it the three levels of relevance, you know, for a retailer or for a buyer, you know, like the emotional relevance, the strategic relevance, and the financial relevance, you know. And in that case, I mean, you have been playing a strategic role in the relevance for them because maybe they were, you know, more allowing, let's say towards you, but you were helping them on something. So that is actually exactly what happens in many

other categories. It's like I

may have a Mezcal brand and you have a country pub and you don't have any agave spirits and I play the role of the the guy that is helping you have an agave offering because nobody's thinking about, you know, everybody's here coming to sell me gin. And then I, you know, I'm over saturated with gin, you know, so it's it's very interesting like how you can develop things in a smart way. I mean, like for example, the theater example that you were saying is is genius. I mean, like the the the Coldplay concert kind of thing, you know, I think channel strategies have created these separations now. It's like on off, you know?

And that's why, for example, like I don't call, I don't talk about on trade and off trade anymore. I talk about bottom up trade and top down trade because the bottom up trade is where you can actually build the story. And the top down train is where you basically kind of like milk it. If you, if you allow me now, but obviously it doesn't mean that, you know, it's black and white because if you are doing a, a waitrose food festival activation in that moment, you know, that top down trade, which is a supermarket chain becomes a bottom up enabler for you because it helps you sell and tell that story. It's always having this kind of like agility to really understand like where to play and putting the, the occasion forward really helps you to, to have clarity because it's like, okay, like actually, you know, for example, faster serve kind of like consumption can play a big role.

Otherwise you would have dismissed that, you know, like the theater kind of example. 100%. 100%. So, I want to leave you some space to, you know, to tell people where to find you, but also, you know, to leave pearl a of wisdom to to somebody that is starting this kind of journey, what would you recommend them or or leave some thoughts to them?

I think you've to love what you're doing. Right? Because it's yeah. The the wine industry is is, it's very competitive. Quite low margin.

It's also quite traditional, quite slow. Right. But my special thing is, you know, because I lived in Italy for a long time. I speak Italian. I love Italian wine.

Every time I see someone buy, you know, one of our cows, one of our paper bottles, think that I'd like to think that they're experiencing a little bit of the joy that I experienced when I lived in your country. Right. And, and, and I want the consumers to kind of experience that too. And I love what I do. And if, you know, if you don't, don't come into this industry think thinking that you've got a five year plan and you can exit to Diageo, right?

Because that, that might have made what happened, but it's highly unlikely, right? You've just got to really love it, you know, and, and believe in your products. Like we don't have a huge marketing budget, but we spend money on a good quality wine. That is our marketing budget, right? So we love our products.

We really believe in them. We love what we, it's an old cliche, isn't it? But if you love what to do, then you never work a day in your life, you know? And I, I, I really do feel like that.

That's very true. And and how can people find you?

If you're in The UK, it's easy. We're in every Waitrose, including King's Cross Station, as I said many times. We are in in Sainsbury's as well, obviously available on the the the line. We work with Asta and with Ocado. So we've got four main retail partners in The UK and then of course we're on British airways short haul flights.

So if you're flying from, Heathrow or Gatwick Airport in London to anywhere in Europe, in, in economy class, will find us on the menu. And I think it's a hopefully an enjoyable way to spend that two hours flying to warmer climates in Europe from The UK.

So thanks a lot, Rob. It was a great pleasure. Pleasure too. And I hope to finally meet you in person soon. Hopefully, with Cyrus, we can have a night

I would love that. Would love that. Yeah. Hugely grateful to Cyrus for playing cue kid here. And I've really enjoyed the conversation, Chris.

Thank you

very That's all for today. Remember that this is a two part episode seventy five and seventy six. So 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.