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US NEWS AND RESEARCH FOR THE WINE, SPIRITS AND BEER EXECUTIVE |
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| Q: The main offices will be in New Jersey? | ||
| ROUX: Yes, in Paramus. I'm not really breaking in any new people. I know how good and how bad they are - and I don't think they are bad at all. So we have a team. We know each other. We're all over 50, but 50 is young these days. We have people who have been in this business for many years and are liked by retailers and wholesalers - particularly by retailers, and I think that's the most important part of this industry. | ||
| Q: Do you have wholesalers lined up? | ||
| ROUX: We're in the process of appointing them now, and we'll announce that soon. I'm trying to appoint by bloc method. For example, if a wholesaler in California is also in Florida, I want to do business with him in his territories. We have people in San Francisco, New York, Chicago and Dallas, but it could well be that someone in California would also be covering Florida. I want an individual to be responsible for a particular wholesaler, wherever that wholesaler operates, even if it's in five different places around the country. We're bound to have situations like this, because that's the way distributors work today. You have people based in Georgia who are doing business in Ohio. This could be handled by the person living closest to the headquarters of the wholesaler. | ||
| Q: How many people are in the company altogether? | ||
| ROUX: Right now we have a network of 16 full-time people. We're also using brokers in states where that's done. | ||
| Q: How far can aquavits grow in the next term? | ||
| ROUX: It's difficult to say, but I want things to happen correctly above all. I'm sure our salesmen could go out and sell 25,000 cases of aquavit tomorrow all over the country. That's not what we want. We would rather sell five cases and sell them properly. So we want positive distribution. Too often everybody gets overanxious, particularly at the bigger companies, because there are quotas to make - and they get made at any price. We don't want this. We have time. If it takes another year or two to get things in place, so be it. | ||
| Q: So certainly the first year will be used to lay the groundwork ... | ||
| ROUX: We first need to secure distribution, which doesn't exist as such. But, again, it must be the right distribution. We don't want to be in every tavern in Texas. We need the right placement. There should be proper representation for aquavit and we will get it by doing just that. But we should triple or quadruple sales without too much problem, just by gaining this positive distribution. | ||
| Q: What's the case volume now for OP Anderson? | ||
| ROUX: It's very small, just a couple thousand cases. We're initially looking to do 7,500 cases for all our aquavits combined, which I think is reasonable. Just getting the right distribution should achieve that. Our direct competition from Denmark (Aalborg) does probably twice that, but I think we can be number one - if not by the end of 1999, by the year 2000. | ||
| Q: Are you considering any repackaging? | ||
| ROUX: Things are being worked on by V&S in Sweden. They are very smart - after all, they made the little bottle called Absolut. They have a great team there. The important thing is to make sure we have communication. It's a team effort. It's not somebody in Sweden succeeding or Michel who is succeeding. It's a team, working together. | ||
| Q: And OP Anderson clearly will be an upscale product? | ||
| ROUX: It will be upscale, without being out of reach. I don't believe we'll retail at $40 per bottle or anywhere near that. It's an affordable premium. We will be priced where the super-premium vodkas are - between $19-20 per bottle. | ||
| Q: But not with the ultra-premium vodkas ... | ||
| ROUX: I want to provide a good product at the right price. I don't want people to feel they're being ripped off. Why should I come in with a product and peg it at an enormous price when the category is not even well know? But, we don't want to make it a $9.99 product either. | ||
| Q: And so you'll probably start mainly in the on-premise? | ||
| ROUX: Yes, and restaurants will be very involved. We will try to recreate traditions, of serving aquavit with oysters and other seafood. There are many things that we will try. I'm sure they won't all succeed. Perhaps it will take several tries. | ||
| Q: What about other V&S products, particularly the bitter brand? | ||
| ROUX: Ahus is the bitter brand we're handling. Bitters are a strong tradition in Sweden. In fact, Sweden is perhaps even more well known for its bitters than Italy. Ahus comes from the Swedish town of Ahus, where Absolut is also made. | ||
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