Published on July, 30th, 2020
A small sample of Catalan wineries[1] replied to the CREDA-UPC-IRTA survey. The wineries point out the downfall of their products’ demand. Amongst the measures performed to prevent the effects of the COVID19 crisis, online sales and home delivery are due to remain once the pandemic is over.
[1] Includes and Andalusian winery.
The sample is composed of 21 wine cellars of small and micro enterprise dimension, with less than 50 employees. Three of the wineries, however, range over 50 and up to 250 employees.
90.5% of the wineries stated that their economic activity was somehow modified because of the COVID19 crisis. Their opinions about the impact of this crisis in the wine sector and its recovery were not very optimistic, which is not to be surprised, as the data collection was hold during the alarm state and the lock down period.
According to our respondents, the main effect from the crisis has been the downfall of the demand on winery products, which was declared unanimously. Besides, the number of clients has also decreased. Conversely, surpluses from the winery’s activity have risen, while the number of fix personnel, the availability of products to develop the activity, and the sale price of their products has remained the same. For the latter, however, 26.3% declared that the prices went down as well (Figure 1).
In order to cope with the situation, the wineries started applying some measures. One of the most adopted measures was the starting with an online sales channel and/or the offering home delivery. Besides, adapting logistic and transportation matters, supporting campaigns to promote wine consumption at home and, opening new market channels were also amongst the most applied measures (Figure 2).
It is still early for some to assess the benefits from the adopted measures. However, results show that some of the measures have come to stay. It is the case of the online sales channel and the home delivery, from which 54% declared that they would keep up with it once the pandemic was over. The opening of new market channels, however, had a more dispersed assessment. While one third declared to keep them up once the crisis is over, another third declared not to have obtained the expected results. The rest considered that it was too early to assess or that they were positive actions to keep while the pandemic is running.
In our next #COVIDByte from the #winesector we will provide with more information about the wineries and grape growers’ opinions about the sector’s next challenges and the measures to be implemented by the administrations. Thanks for your interest!
Figure 1 Main effects of the COVID19 crisis measured according to an increase, decrease or maintenance of some parameters of the economic activity.
Figure 2 Actions taken to cope with the COVID19crisis. Expressed according to the percentage of wineries that applied each measure.
