28.1.15 The Bodegas Double Promotion Contribution

At the plenary meeting of the Consejo yesterday the bodegas agreed to double their contribution to the promotional budget, meaning 2.5 centimos per litre sold, or an extra 900,000 euros. The initial proposal by Fedejerez, the bodegas' representative body, was to quadruple their contribution to 5 centimos, however while a majority could have been achieved, Fedejerez chose to reduce it to 2.5 in order to guarantee consensus and thus demonstrate the commitment of the bodegas.

While this is a significant increase, it is still felt to be insufficient, but there are many loose ends to tie up. The idea is to raise the matter again before the harvest to keep raising the contributions from both the bodegas and the growers. The growers contributions, known as the "canon de la uva" re-started last year after some years of absence.

Fedejerez wants to see any increases in contributions to be in the same proportion for growers and bodegas, and asked the Consejo to draw up a three year plan to determine the precise budget requirements. As things now stand, the Consejo will have a budget of some 1.5 million euros for this season which will be augmented by the state and the OCM (a European fund for promotion in third - non EU - countries) up to some 2.2 or 2.3 million euros.

A Sherry promotional event in a specialist shop in Madrid (diario jerez)

However promotion in traditional European markets - the major markets - will prove more difficult as a fine line must be drawn between these markets where the quantities are sold and the emerging ones such as the USA and Asia. While this new budget is much better than that of last year, Fedejerez president Evaristo Babe made it clear that more effort is needed and that the matter will need to be looked at again. The increase to 5 centimos will be considered again later, and he said that everyone needs to contribute to the promotion of the wine to generate more addad value ans more profit. "When demand takes off Sherry, which is predestined to be a top level drink because it is limited, because it is a rare asset, will sell better and give more profit to us all including the growers".