The champagne industry’s post-Covid hangover has continued for another year, with exports in 2024 sliding by over 10% in volume terms.
Figures released over the weekend by trade association Comité Champagne showed total sales on a volumes basis for the category declined by 9.2% in the 12-month period, to 271.4m bottles. Exports, meanwhile, fell further, by 10.8% compared to 2023, totalling 153.2m bottles.
In the prior year, overseas shipments were down 8.2% after what the organisation described at the time as “three extraordinary years” from 2021 to 2022. The 2023 performance represented a return to pre-pandemic levels for champagne’s volume sales.
Domestically last year, volumes dipped by 7.2% with France “still suffering from the prevailing gloomy political and economic context”.
‘Champagne is a true barometer of consumer mood,” said Comité Champagne co-president Maxime Toubart. “This is no time for celebration, with inflation, conflicts around the world, economic uncertainty and a political wait-and-see attitude in some of champagne’s biggest markets, such as France and the US’.
Toubart’s fellow president, David Chatillon, added: ‘It’s in less favourable times that we need to prepare for the future, to maintain our trajectory in terms of sustainable development and in terms of conquest of new markets and new consumers.
“Champagne is a solid, sustainable organisational model that has proved its value, even in the face of adversity, which gives it confidence in the future.”
In September, listed champagne group Lanson-BCC booked a near-20% drop in sales from the six months to the end of June.
