Fly the spirits market in 2021. Aperitifs, digestives and liqueurs in general, that is, everything in the world that revolves around food, toasts and happy hours is increasingly Made in Italy. It is surprising that in celebrating the glories of the primacy of Italian wine (in quantity, at low, too low prices), at the last Vinitaly in Verona, very few newspapers underlined that we have surpassed France by a lot as the second world exporter of spirits and cordials closely following the first, Germany.
But not in number of bottles but in value and with an increasingly attractive image, that of the Italian way of life, which suggests a probable short-term overtaking of Germany by Italy. The rise of Italian aperitifs and digestives, bitters and cordials is witnessed by data by Jan Conway which he published in Statista.
Liqueurs and cordials: Italy takes second place
La Germany it remains the world's largest exporter of spirits and cordials in 2020 but with a 30% drop as of 2019. Overall, in 2020, Germany exported spirits and cordials worth approximately US$421,4 million. Italy ranks very close in second place, with exports worth around $415,8 million. There France it was even surpassed by Ireland while the United States is in the low end of the range with just $118 million. In reality it was a "race" that had its negative side due to the pandemic since between 2019 and 2020 Italian exports fell by 14%, but with a less negative trend than that of other countries and, above all, with a faster and more consistent recovery in 2021. If Germany has lost, as we have underlined, a good 30% of its sales abroad, England has lost 22%, France 18,6%.
Spirits: recovery of 2021 and threats for 2022
On the other hand, our exports in 2021 recorded a leap higher than that of other countries, with a growth of 23%, as communicated by Denis Pantini (Nomisma Agri-food Manager) and Emanuele Di Faustino (Nomisma Project Manager) on the occasion of the presentation of theSpirits Observatory. And for 2022, what are the expectations of operators in the sector? Not very optimistic because, for example, we will miss the Russian market for a long time, which in 2020, in contrast to other markets, imported spirits and spirits with an increase of as much as 76% compared to 2019.
According to Federvini, the indications coming from the operators are very worrying. The reasons are those common, albeit in different proportions, to all sectors of the economy: transport costs and difficulties, continuous increases in raw materials and energy and, increasingly, the worsening of the negative effects of the conflict Russian-Ukrainian which is draining huge resources in a now uncontrollable way from the "healthy" and active economy to the destructive one of armaments. In addition to having a negative impact on household consumption propensities. As for the domestic market, sales of spirits have grown, according to theFedervini Observatory, in collaboration with Nomisma and TradeLab, by 6,5% in 2021 on 2020, reaching 1,2 billion euros, recording progress in all categories: the best performers are the alcoholic aperitifs (+17,3%), followed by Amari (+ 7,1%), sweet liqueurs (+ 3,3%) and distillates e spirits (+ 3%).
On the other hand, a minus sign for the sector of the goods vinegars which recorded sales of 133 million euros, with the positive exception of balsamic vinegar, whose sales grew by 3,5% in value.
