In 1995, I joined the drinks sector as a graduate trainee at Bass Brewers in the UK, which was a great first company to work for and where I was trained in the fundamentals of sales and brand management, and – most importantly – the quest for a strong human connection that I firmly believe is an essential skill within the drinks category. My father spent 25+ years at Bushmills Whiskey which was part of Irish Distillers at the time, and thus it was a conscious decision for me to enter the drinks sector. Over the proceeding years, I have worked for a number of drinks brand owners such as Whitbread, Coors and Moët Hennessy. I also spent 8 enjoyable years in the perfume and cosmetics sector with Dior/LVMH, and have been fortunate to have lived and worked globally in my career with roles based in Hong Kong, Singapore, New York, Geneva and London.
Spirits has a genuine depth of history and continuous improvement over multiple centuries, from its origins from the first distillations in the 8th century where alchemists created alembic stills, to the development of continuous stills in the early 19th century and latterly to the re-emergence of craft distillers in the 21st century. The common vision of these distillers over the centuries has been to be able to take multiple base ingredients from across terroirs globally, and utilizing the differentiated flavours that are magnified during the distillation process, to creating a brand proposition that consumers of legal drinking age can enjoy across multiple occasions. This diverse taste, multiple occasions in which to enjoy and depth of heritage is unique, and testament to its longevity and ability to remain relevant to LDA consumers globally is that this year we have multiple European spirits brands enjoying their 300- and 200-year anniversaries!
As President, my primary roles are to maintain and cultivate a spirit of unity among our members and help define the common strategic framework that guides our activities, in particular those of the Secretariat team in Brussels. In spirits, people are passionate about the products, companies, and regions they represent, and there’s a high degree of professionalism, respect, and loyalty. People tend to stay within the sector for many years, sometimes even for the duration of their entire professional career. This of course helps when trying to agree common positions and viewpoints on policy issues that impact the sector. Nonetheless, consensus does not fall from the sky, and perspectives can differ substantially at times. That’s when the President needs to come in, trying to close the ranks and explore if and where meaningful consensus positions can be found.
The mission of spiritsEUROPE is to represent, defend, and promote the sector and help members achieve sustainable business growth. Europe is a powerhouse of spirits productions, with many world-leading brands, categories, and companies located here. At the same time, spirits are a comparatively tightly regulated sector. To ensure our sector can continue to strive, we need to ensure the applicable rules and regulations that govern how spirits can be produced, marketed, distributed and sold, are devised and evolve in predictable, appropriate and balanced ways. As a sector that is very successful in extra-European exports, we also need adequate policy support to ensure fair and rules-based market access for our products in countries around the world.
My day-to-day role is a commercial role primarily focused on developing the Remy Cointreau business in EMEA, South and North Asia Pacific and Global Travel Retail. In my honorary role as President of the association, this background can provide a helpful first-hand perspective whenever policy-makers want to discuss and understand how new or revised legislation may impact producers in practice. In other words, another role of the President is to support and supplement the regular policy dialogue conducted by the association in Brussels to ensure forthcoming EU policies structurally support our sector and incentivize economic growth and job creation throughout the entire value chain.
Looking at major policy issues of relevance to our sector, we can see elements of both – challenge and opportunity – in all of them. Our job in the association is to try to reduce, as much as that is possible, the challenging aspects and ensure that the elements of opportunity prevail!
Take, for example, the Single Market, arguably the biggest achievement and success story of European integration to date. The Single Market has been and remains a huge opportunity for our sector, creating common rules and enabling frictionless movement of spirits in what was historically a very diversely regulated geographical area with more than 400 million consumers. At the same time, the risk of national re-fragmentation of common rules has always been there and remains a real challenge today. Any re-fragmentation of common rules, for instance, in the area of food labelling, would create an unnecessary administrative burden with additional compliance costs, hurting companies, particularly SMEs, and the overall competitiveness of the sector. The recent report by former Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta on the Single Market seems an indication that the European Commission wants to re-prioritize the Single Market again, and we hope the next Commission will follow up on some of his recommendations!
Sustainability is another major area where challenge and opportunity typically go hand in hand. Spirits are a sector with a particularly strong and impressive sustainability track record in terms of economic, social and environmental sustainability. Still, we can’t be complacent, and the long-term sustainability strategies put in place by major spirits category associations such as Cognac or Scotch and producing companies are credentials of our strong sustainability ambitions within our sector. Our broad expectation is that EU policies should structurally support and incentivize these efforts, rather than creating too rigid, costly or potentially trade-distorting rules that could threaten to undermine these activities.
To pick a final example from our Manifesto “Re-strengthening the European Spirit”, we view the protection and promotion of Europe’s cultural food and drink heritage and culinary traditions – of which spirits are an important part – as a huge opportunity. Here, we are extremely grateful for the work by the European Commission to continuously improve the international protection of EU food and drinks with Geographical Indication status and promote consumer awareness of GI quality food and drink products around the world. At the same time, such efforts need to go hand in hand with an ambitious trade policy to ensure fair and adequate market access for such products. Trade barriers in third countries and the risks of trade disputes remain significant challenges for the spirits sector today. Here, we very much hope the EU can intensify its efforts to remove trade barriers – with a focus on untapped markets with great potential – through the conclusion of new Free Trade Agreements, deeper regulatory cooperation & better enforcement of existing commitments.
Depends where I am, who I am with and the occasion, that’s the diversity of spirits and the occasions in which we can enjoy cocktails responsibly. However hopeful of good weather this summer and being with friends and family, it has to be the Margarita. The Margarita was originally created when Dallas socialite Margarita Sames mixed her two favourite spirits, Cointreau and tequila, together with lime juice while on vacation in Acapulco back in 1948. Super versatile, refreshing, Easy to make with many options to personalise your serve such as frozen, spicy or the original on the rocks. Cheers!
