Foxcroft, Mary-Lyn
Director: Blue Platinum Consulting - Johannesburg
Contact: Mary-Lyn
Website: CapeWineMasters.
Mary-Lyn is based in Johannesburg and works as a business consultant in financial services. Her initial enjoyment of wine began during her studies at Stellenbosch University but it was only in 2002 that she began her wine education through the Cape Wine Academy. She is a member of a number of wine tasting clubs in Johannesburg including Wild Yeasts, Cellar Rats and a girls-only Bubbly Club.
Mary-Lyn?s wine objective is to stimulate the interest of South Africa?s casual / non-wine drinkers by finding a wine that matches their drinking preferences. This also led to the topic of her CWM dissertation, namely ?Growing the consumption of wine amongst emerging market consumers in South Africa?.
Areas of special interest include all kinds of Bubbly, Chardonnay and Chateauneuf du Pape. Her other main interest is long distance running, trail running and cycling, with 3 Comrades medals under the belt and other interesting runs/cycles on the horizon.
Synopsis of Dissertation:
Growing the consumption of wine amongst emerging market consumers in South Africa
This report outlines global wine consumption trends and the factors influencing these trends, with specific emphasis on four countries experiencing substantial growth in consumption (China, India, Russia and Australia). A number of common factors emerged from the analysis including: improvement in the socio-economic status of the population due to rising GDP, shifting consumer attitudes to wine, and the promotion of the health aspects of wine, amongst others. While some of the countries have organised structures, networks and initiatives to support and guide domestic consumption to agreed targets, other countries are still experiencing basic challenges such as high import tariffs, poor distribution networks and lack of coordinated government support. The country analysis was conducted in the hope that relevant aspects of the interventions in each country may be applied to the South African context in order to grow the consumption of wine.
Within this context, South Africa?s position in world rankings is considered, along with the reasons behind South Africa?s low per capita consumption of wine. The report presents a comprehensive view of the South African consumer including alcohol consumption behaviour trends. A detailed description of the emerging market wine consumer in South Africa is also provided to indicate the particular challenges facing producers attempting to break into the various segments of this market.
The report reviews the current initiatives and interventions by the wine industry to increase domestic consumption of wine and draws on the opinions and perspectives of wine industry stakeholders. The general industry opinion is that not enough is being done by producers to target emerging wine consumers; however there is evidence of success in the market, particularly through the efforts of certain medium and large distributors. It was concluded though that these efforts are insufficient in comparison with the potential size of the market.
In conclusion, the salient points are that the South African wine community requires mutually shared goals for growing domestic consumption, that this should be a collective effort, and that these goals necessitate the formation of an industry body tasked with delivery and accountability to drive the attainment of the goals. A further recommendation was to establish a reliable formal township market distribution strategy and infrastructure by understanding the current challenges in accessing this market and putting structures and processes in place to ensure the regular delivery of wine of a consistent quality to the township market. Finally, the establishment of a market niche for the manufacture, supply, licensing and marketing of ?table wine? as a category is proposed.
