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Brandy Brand Champion 2022: Shustoff

Shustoff brandy
The Global Spirits-owned brand made significant gains in 2021 with a 20.2% leap in nine-litre-case sales

2021 was a progressive year for the brandy category, which saw an uptick in demand after a slump in 2020. Nine-litre-case sales worldwide increased from 135.4m in 2020 to 141.5m in 2021, according to Euromonitor International.

The category is in a period of healthy growth, it would seem, and has enjoyed a boost from growing interest in up-and-coming subcategories. For example, French brandy Calvados saw double-digit sales growth in 2021, compared with the previous year.

Sales soared by 14.2% in 2021, after 4.8m bottles were sold. Interest in Calvados is strong overseas, with exports accounting for 50% of sales last year.

Looking to the million-case-selling brandies, there was a clear standout performer to claim the Brandy Brand Champion title: Shustoff. The Global Spirits-owned brand made significant gains in 2021 with a 20.2% leap in nine-litre-case sales. The brand also bagged the Brandy Brand Champion spot in last year’s report, when its case sales rose by 8.4% after an extremely taxing year.

Dreher brandy, owned by Campari Group, recovered in 2021, with sales rebounding to levels higher than those recorded before the pandemic. In 2019, the brand reached 2.8m cases, yet this fell to 2.7m in 2020. However, things picked up again in 2021 as the brand hit 2.8m cases again.

Heaven Hill Brands also made positive steps last year, gaining 6.1% growth for its Christian Brothers brandy. With Heaven Hill Brands recently unveiling plans to expand its Bourbon production in Kentucky, could its brandy secure the same fortune in the future? It will be interesting to see if investment will follow.

However, growth wasn’t enjoyed by all brands. The biggest-selling brand on our list, Mansion House Brandy, experienced a drop in volume, falling by 6% in 2021 after a decrease in 2020.

Witnessing the biggest drop in case sales was United Spirits-owned McDowell’s, which has been on a downward trajectory since 2017; last year, its volume sales fell by 9.7%. Diageo’s Indian arm, United Spirits, recently agreed to sell its ‘Popular’ segment of 32 brands, excluding McDowell’s, to Inbrew Beverages for around US$105.7m. This could mean a greater focus on boosting McDowell’s sales.

The brandy category has certainly been an active one lately, and producers look keen to continue creating momentum in 2022. Earlier this year, for example, Bacardi launched its first Indian brandy, Good Man, to disrupt the premium segment, while Bardinet expanded availability of its coffee-flavoured brandy to the UK, after originally launching the expression in 2021.

Further innovation could make for a prosperous 2022 for the category overall.

Figures: million 9l-case sales
Brand Owner 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 %+/-
Mansion House Brandy Tilaknagar Industries 3.5 4.1 4.8 4.7 4.5 -6.0%
Old Admiral Brandy Radico Khaitan 3.1 3.1 3.8 3.7 3.8 1.6%
Dreher Campari Group 3.4 3.1 2.8 2.7 2.8 3.7%
Shustoff Global Spirits 0.6 0.8 1.2 1.3 1.6 20.3%
Christian Brothers Heaven Hill Brands 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.2 6.1%
Torres Brandy Torres 1.3 1.3 1.3 1.0 1.1 4.0%
McDowell’s Brandy United Spirits 1.7 1.4 1.3 1.1 1.0 -9.7%

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