Ep. 726 The African Wine Market | Clubhouse Wine Business Club

Welcome to this special Italian Wine Podcast broadcast. This episode is a recording of Clubhouse, the popular drop in audio chat. This Clubhouse session was taken from the Wine Business Club and Italian Wine Club. Listen in as wine lovers and experts alike engage in some great conversation on a range of topics in wine. If you enjoy listening, please consider donating through italianwinepodcast.com. Any amount helps cover equipment, production, and publication costs. And remember to subscribe and rate our show wherever you tune in. Okay. Okeydoke. Hello, everybody. My name is Stevie Kim, and this is actually we we haven't done this in a long time. This is actually the wine business. I was about to say Italian wine club, but this is actually the wine business club of Clubhouse. We haven't done this in a while because we used to run two rooms, Italian wine, which we still have been doing very consistently since February every week and sometimes couple of times a week. And then on Wednesdays, we used to do the wine business room. And then, you know, and then COVID situation got a little bit better, and we ran out of time. But, actually, we used to this wine business room during daytime and was hugely popular. We did couple of times China, Japan, Korea. I think Japan Wine Business Room was the most popular one, and it's still running on the Taiyun wine podcast as replay. So this time, we've decided to do kind of a revisit of a room we've did before. It was it was Africa wine market, and I'm here with Temi, child Temi. His name is Temitope Aquintola. How how do you pronounce that? I I don't wanna mock it up. Okay. So it's demitope aquintola. Demitope aquintola? Yeah. How do the Italians say that? Demi. Demi. Just keep it simple. Just keep it simple. So Temi, I've known him for some time. He just walked into the room we're in Verona today. He popped by, which we're so grateful because a lot has happened since last time we've spoken to each other. But Timmy, I've met him when he was actually a student. He was a graduate student at Bologna Business School, and he actually came to do a special project with us, with the Vinicili International Group as a one of the marketing projects. What what did you do? I can't remember. It was the wine to you and the online Travel to wine yeah. Vino to travel to Vino. Yeah. It was that one. Fantastic one. Yeah. That was actually a really, really good project. It was. It was. We had a lot of good pointers to that one. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Yeah. It was actually very good at the time. Yeah. So now Temi has actually been working for is the big boss in zoning now. I didn't even know. Tell us, like, the developments, what you're doing in zoning now. So Temi now is responsible for the African market as always and also the Mediterranean market. So all the market that lies from France down to Malta, aside from Italy. Aside from Italy. Yeah. Because, you know, those markets have something very similar to Africa, and that's what many people don't know. So That's very interesting. It is interesting. So there's a lot of similarities in with the business in Africa. If you wanna do something in the French African markets, then you have to have some connections to France because most of the things trickle down. So I'm responsible for the business from the Mediterranean down all the way to Africa. I'm also responsible for the ecommerce, segment in our business. I What does that mean, ecommerce? So you know that For the entire company? No. So what happens is, Zunin has, its subsidiary companies, and I just sit here in in Gambelara and try to understand the strategy for the ecommerce business. So we develop the strategies together with the area managers and also with my senior managers, and we we just launch it. Basically, that's what it's about. And how big is your ecommerce team in house? In house. Now I think our strategy is to make sure that everybody participates. Every sales manager participates to the ecommerce team. So it's not a one man show. It's everybody's showing up. The world is going e and the business is also going e. So we need to be right there. Zoning, we're leaders. So we need to lead that space as well and get our strong foot in the door. So that's what we're doing with that. Oh my goodness. So, Temi, so let's do this. My colleague, Richard, he's a new entry. You haven't met him yet. It's is this Scott dude. He actually did a small recap of what we discussed last year. Okay. Okay? Last year, we also had your friend Tinashe. Yes. What's his last name? Nyam? Yamdoka. Shout out to Tinashe. Tinashe. Tinashe is easy, but the Nyamdoka is a little bit more difficult. He is a prominent also wine producer in Africa. So last year we did Africa is the wine market for future because we we said that because by 2050, Africa will be home to 50 of the world's population. That's what, we had said. Very good. And become the world's largest free market zone. But there is complexity and diversity across the continent. No two countries have the same currency or speak the same language. Yeah. This is one of this is like one of the key barriers that you face in doing business in Africa. So people believe that Africa is one country and then the reality is Africa is a continent consisting of 58 countries and no two countries speak 58, five eight. 58. Yeah. So if you include the island countries and the Indian Oceans countries to it. So and no two countries speak the exactly the same language. We don't have the same currency. Even if you call them CFA franc, even if you call this currency CFA franc, the exchange rate is always different, the availability of currency is always different. And so this I want this is, like, one of the major barriers to business, in Africa. Yeah. That's crazy. So we said that each market is different, but there are four geographical regions. Africa, which is Morocco, the Dubai of North Africa Yeah. As you had said. Then there is West Africa. And Nigeria, where you're from, is the biggest market but also the most difficult to penetrate. Ghana is easier to penetrate. This is still the West bit with less bureaucracy and higher consumer awareness. And then there is the third bit, East Africa, Kenya. That's Kenya, is a good place to access the East African market with vibrant online interaction. Also, part of East Africa is Uganda and Rwanda are also emerging. Then lastly, there is Southern Africa. South Africa is the access point to rest of the Southern African development community as it is the continent's dominant producer with a few big producers controlling distribution channels across the continent. Most wine consumed in South Africa is South African. It can be difficult for international wines to crack the market. You know something about that. You've been doing this for a while. For a while. Yeah. Mozambique is another expanding market to keep an eye on. So you'll give us a little bit of update about that. The biggest challenges were we said were logistics and government bureaucracy, but that's kind of, like, everywhere. That's even in Italy. Right? You've been living here even in Gambelara, I think. Right? So True. And then we spoke about this as well as a little bit about the maturing market and how to approach the market. So what I'd like to do with you today is kind of get an update of what we've spoken about since last time we've met as well as giving some takeaways Okay. For our audience. And hopefully oh, I see some let me give a shout out to Andrea Ebbie. She'll be doing some she'll be doing a room soon as Paul is here too. Paul Bologna. Hello, Paul. So let's talk about the wine market first. Okay. Alright. Would you like to give me some kind of ideas to the placement of Italian wine in the African market? Maybe give me some kind of idea in terms of the demographic or behavioral segment for the wine consumption. Okay. So the key demographic remains the the twenty years to forty five, forty four years. Now