6 September 20201
By Tom Collins
tom@TheCork.ie
Irish Distillers, the producer of some of the world’s most well-known and successful Irish whiskeys, has announced results for the 2020/2021 financial year (ending 30th June 2021). The results show that despite a challenging environment, the business experienced a strong financial year driven by the growth of Jameson in existing, new and emerging markets around the world.
Jameson, one of Ireland’s most recognised global brands, continued its growth trajectory selling 8.6 million cases in 2020/2021, up from 7.5 million in the previous year. In doing so, it cemented its position as one of the Top 5 best-selling international whisk(e)y brands in the world.
In the US, Jameson sold 4 million cases representing volume growth of +19%, with sales of Jameson Black Barrel growing by +36% in the US in the same period. Additionally, Jameson recorded solid growth in other key markets including UK (+10%), Germany (+30%), Australia (+15%) and Ireland (+6%). The Jameson brand continues to perform well in emerging markets with Nigeria (+216%), India (+85%), Brazil (+67%), China (+45%) and Japan (+13) all recording impressive growth.
Conor McQuaid, Chairman and CEO said: “Despite the difficult circumstances arising from the global pandemic our portfolio, led by Jameson, has demonstrated incredible resilience. This was achieved despite the disruption to the hospitality sector in many markets throughout our financial year, coupled with increasing input costs. The team at Irish Distillers and across all of Pernod Ricard can be very proud of these results as they are a testament to their hard work, commitment, and dedication.
Thanks to this incredible collective effort, we have been able to deliver strong financial results, while also maintaining a clear focus on key priority areas such as our sustainability and responsibility roadmap and innovation pipeline.
As these results show, we continue to develop our historically strong markets while introducing new markets to our portfolio of Irish whiskey. What is particularly exciting is the growth evident in emerging markets including Nigeria, India, Brazil, and China. This is the result of our strategy of ‘globalising’ the Jameson brand by focusing additional efforts on ‘non-traditional’ Irish whiskey markets. We look forward to introducing even more consumers in Africa, Asia-Pacific and Latin America to the taste of Jameson Irish whiskey and the rest of the Irish Distillers portfolio in the years to come.
The strong growth figures and resilience of Jameson is also the result of our consistent focus on brand building and developing consumer advocacy over the past 30 years. We are confident that our clear, long-term vision and consistent approach will serve to support Jameson’s continued growth in the future, despite any potential uncertainly or other challenges to our business which may arise in the short term.
Additionally, the global growth of our prestige portfolio comprising Redbreast, the Spot whiskeys, Midleton Very Rare and Method and Madness reflects the increase in consumer appetite for premium and super-premium Irish whiskeys which we will continue to nurture as part of our premiumisation strategy.
And while Global Travel Retail sales were heavily impacted by travel restrictions during the year, we are confident that sales will return to pre-pandemic levels, although this may take some time.
We also appreciate that it continues to be a challenging business environment for the hospitality sector and particularly the on-trade. We will continue to work with and support our partners across Ireland and other global markets as they look towards a full re-opening” concluded McQuaid.
