Antica wins sambuca battle

Antica sambuca producer Hi-Spirits has fended off a complaint from Luxardo's distributor, Cellar Trends, to the UK's advertising watchdog over who leads the UK sambuca market.

Hi-Spirits claimed in a magazine advert that Antica was "the best selling on-trade sambuca by far" in the UK.

Its claim incensed Cellar Trends, which complained to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) that market research showed Luxardo to be the overall sambuca market leader in the UK.

The ASA today (16 June) sided with Hi-Spirits, upholding its advert as fair and accurate.

"For the record, Cellar Trends is responsible for growing the Sambuca sector over the last ten years," said Cellar Trends marketing director Terry Barker today.

He criticised Hi-Spirits for not sourcing its data in the advert, but conceded: "The complaint to the ASA was based on Nielsen data which appears to be incomplete. Data from CGA, used by Hi-Spirits, may be more robust."

An ASA assessment of available market data found that Antica's volume sales were 0.2% higher than Luxardo's year-on-year. Market share data for the 12 months prior to the advert's publication showed that Antica had the highest volume and value share of on-trade sales.

"We accept the ASA ruling and we are looking into the data research methods," said Cellar Trends.