PHENOMENAL sales performance by Irish Distillers premier whiskey brand, main contributors was a one of the growth in group profits to £49.2 million. Sales rose by just under 9 per cent to £616 million.
Last year was a notable year for the Jameson brand, with sales up over 17 per cent and exceeding one million cases for the first time. Industry figures show that Jameson's sales growth was the fastest in the international drinks industry last year sales have grown from 600,000 cases in 1992 to more than one million cases last year.
The success of Jameson is due to a variety of factors, including a £20 million worldwide advertising and promotion campaign and the international distribution network of parent company Pernod Ricard.
Irish Distillers chief executive, Mr Richard Burrows, said that continental Europe was the single biggest consumer of Jameson, accounting for 40 per cent of the total, followed by duty free sales with 20 per cent, North America and Ireland with 15 per cent each and the rest of the world with 10 per cent.
Mr Burrows added that Pernod Ricard - which took over Irish Distillers after a hotly contest takeover bid in 1988 - had set the group the target of selling two million cases of Jameson. "No precise target date has been set but it's probably in the early years of the next century," he said.
Sales growth for Irish Distillers' other brands was also good, but not as substantial as for Jameson. Power's Gold Label and Paddy brands, which largely cater for the domestic market, increased sales by 6 per cent and 5 per cent respectively, although Bushmills was hit by a continuing boycott by the Irish American community in the San Francisco area and increased its sales by only 0.6 per cent.
Mr Burrows said that Irish Distillers had gone to great time and trouble to show that employment practices at its Bushmills distillery in Co Antrim were fair and that there was no discrimination against Catholics. "We have gone to great effort to show them the true picture but we haven't persuaded them so far" said Mr Burrows, who added that even the intervention of SDLP leader, Mr John Hume on its behalf failed to have any effect.
On the possibility of the abolition of duty free within the EU in 1999, Mr Burrows admitted to being pessimistic about the European Commission changing its mind. He said: "Why should duty free be singled out for treatment when the EU is not near VAT harmonisation." The 20 per cent of Jameson sales from duty free is almost totally accounted for within the EU.
In the past year, Irish Distillers has substantially expanded its BWG food distribution subsidiary, which has the Spar franchise in the Republic, the Mace franchise in Northern Ireland and which last month acquired the Spar franchise in the south west of England for £8.8 million.
BWG chief executive, Mr Denis Allman said that there had been strong growth in Spar in Ireland and there were now 80 stores in the chain, with 60 of these in the greater Dublin area. The boom in residential development in central Dublin is the main factor behind the growth in the Spar chain, and a new 3,000 sq ft store is due to open in O'Connell Street in the next few months.
In Britain, the Spar chain countrywide has won the contract to supply the Naafi stores on army and navy bases.
