On Thursday, Pernod Ricard will report its first-half and second-quarter results for 2016/17. Here, just-drinks takes a closer look at the group’s activities in the three months to the end of December.
- At the start of October, the company announced the launch of a new Chivas Regal expression. Ultis debuted at the Tax Free World Exhibition in Cannes.
- A couple of days later, Constellation Brands trumped Pernod to the purchase of Utah’s High West distillery. It would be another two months before the French group got its hands on an American whiskey firm.
- Also at the start of October, the company closed the Seattle branch of its Our/Vodka project as it experienced increased competition in the city.
- At the start of November, Pernod Ricard’s Chivas Brothers unit announced plans to consolidate its whisky packaging and bottling footprint in Scotland, with one of its facilities in the west of the country set to close within three years.
- In mid-November, the firm poached a head winemaker for its white & sparkling Jacob’s Creek wines from Treasury Wine Estates. Trina Smith now oversees white, rosé and sparkling wines in the Jacob’s Creek portfolio.
- At the start of December, Pernod agreed to sell its Domecq brandies and wines to Bodega Las Copas, a joint-venture between Grupo Emperador Spain and Gonzalez Byass. The disposal was in line with the company’s strategy to simplify its portfolio for growth and focus on its priority spirits and wines brands, it said.
- Later in the month, the firm admitted that its Absolut vodka brand was not “sufficiently focussed” on Millennial consumers in the US. The company said it would look to highlight the brand’s “fantastic credentials”.
- Finally, on 9 December, Pernod lined up the purchase of West Virginia-based Smooth Ambler Spirits Co, marking its return to American whiskey. The move came seven years after it offloaded the Wild Turkey brand to Gruppo Campari.