Disappearing Restaurants = Vanishing Fine Wine Sales?

The disappearance of thousands of restaurants could offer one possible explanation for the on-premise drop in fine wine sales, according to Susan Kleutsch, director of product development-foodservice at The NPD Group which tracks sales across a wide variety of consumer industries.

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While wines selling for more than $25 retail have been growing in supermarkets and other outlets, anecdotal reports from high-end winemakers report dramatic declines. Specific brand and other hard data for on-premise consumption are not tracked by scanner data and provide challenges to quantifying the extent of sales declines of high-end wine.

RECESSION HITS INDEPENDENTS & FINE DINING HARDEST

More than 5,000 independent restaurants overall have gone out of business, a decline of 1.7 percent since spring 2008. Hardest hit, however, were independent, fine dining establishments.

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DARWINIAN WEEDING OUT LEAVES CHAINS IN GOOD SHAPE

“The recession appears to have weeded out restaurants performing poorly prior to the economic downturn,” Kleutsch said, “and this seems most true for independents and smaller chains that are likely having a hard time competing with the resources and marketing power of major chains.”

In terms of restaurant unit counts by U.S. Census Regions, declines ranged from no growth to down -2 percent. The hardest hit is the West North Central Census Region, where units declined by -2 compared to last spring. On the other end of the spectrum, unit counts were flat in the East South Central, West South Central, Mountain, and Pacific regions.