- Sales from three months to end of June decline 13.7% to EUR44.4m (US$52.2m)
- For first half of 2025, top line down 8.5% at EUR86.6m
A plunge in domestic sales of almost one quarter has pulled Marie Brizard Wine & Spirits further downwards in its second quarter.
The group, which owns the nameake line of cocktail syrups and liqueurs alongside blended scotch stalwart William Peel, saw sales in France during the three months to the end of June slump by 23.8%. Consequently, group sales for the quarter finished down by almost 14% on the corresponding period in 2024.
Half-year sales sit at -8.5% year-on-year, totalling EUR86.6m.
The situation at home for the Paris-headquartered business appears to have deteriorated even further since three months ago, when “challenging annual negotiations with off-premise operators had taken place. In this week’s results, the discussions were described as having been “tense”, resulting in the loss of listings for William Peel – France was the second-largest market for scotch whisky in volume terms last year. The dispute centres around Marie Brizard’s introduction of price increases “made necessary by sharp rises in the cost of matured spirits”.
According to the brand owner, the delisting accounted for 6.3% of the 17.4% sales slide from France in H1.
Internationally, a 1.3% top-line dip in H1 was less dramatic, although the group’s US importer – who was not named – “decided unilaterally … to a mass reduction in inventories”, particularly for the Sobieski vodka mark.
“Against a gloomy international backdrop, the negative trend in revenue performance in the second quarter reflects persistent tensions in the worldwide wine and spirits market: unfavourable effects of tense trade negotiations in early 2025 and continued inventory reductions by our distributors in several markets, particularly in the US,” Marie Brizard said.
“In this transition year, the measures taken to mitigate these impacts and best preserve the financial performance of our activities in France and on international markets have now entered the operational phase.”
Among these measures are “a strengthening [of] control over certain expenses or even freezing them”.
