The boss of Chivas Brothers has declared its brands are reaching “historic highs” as the distiller reported a bumper rise in sales in its most financial year.
Dumbarton-based Chivas underlined the continuing demand for Scotch whisky around the world as flagship spirits Chivas Regal, Ballantine’s, and The Glenlivet contributed to a major leap in turnover and profits at parent group Pernod Ricard.
It pinpointed a “robust” performance in Asia and “stellar growth” in North America as sales climbed by 17%.
In its results statement, Chivas did not disclose a specific figure for the value of Scotch whisky sales it generated over the year. But a spokeswoman said Scotch whisky accounted for 22% of Pernod’s net sales for the period, which rose by 10% to €12.14 billion, and 34% of net sales growth at the parent firm.
READ MORE: High-profile collapses spark fears of further failure
Flagship brand Chivas Regal also sold in excess of five million cases for the first time and was the leading contributor to the overall group’s growth.
The results came as Chivas announced plans to invest more than £60 million over the next three years to accelerate efforts to reduce energy and carbon use, as it aims to become carbon neutral in its distilling operations by the end of 2026.
The company recently said it would share the expertise and learnings from its trial of pioneering heat recovery technology at its Glentauchers Distillery in Speyside with the wider industry. The trial achieved a 53% cut in carbon emissions at the site.
Chivas said its flagship Chivas Regal brand had achieved growth of 25% to 5.1 million nine-litre cases during its last financial year, with an “impressive performance” in markets such as India and Japan.
READ MORE: Genteel world of tourism in uproar as new rules bite hard
Ballantine’s grew by 13% to 8.8m 9-litre cases, The Glenlivet by 9% to 1.6m 9-litre cases, and Royal Salute by 32% to 0.3m 9-l cases. Aberlour grew by 11% in the “highly competitive malts category”.
Chivas noted that its performance had been “particularly robust” in Asia, where sales grew by 21%. That included growth of 27% in India, 19% in South Korea, 28% in Japan, and 7% in Greater China, where the company said it was driving demand among new Scotch audiences.
Growth of 8% was achieved in the “highly saturated market” of North America; sales in the US and Canada increased by 8% and 7% respectively.
Jean-Etienne Gourgues, chairman and chief executive of Chivas Brothers, said: “The historic highs we’re seeing across our strategic brands signal the success of our premiumisation strategy which has enabled Chivas Brothers to outperform the market.
"Our highest growth of the last decade reinforces our position to shape the future of sustainable Scotch while continuing to meet demand. We have fast-tracked a number of sustainability initiatives to meet our own ambitious targets and remain committed to supporting the industry in ushering in this new era —as we demonstrated earlier this year by making our heat recovery findings open source.”
READ MORE: Stornoway Port chief outlines hopes for £59m harbour project
Separately, Pernod Ricard reported net sales growth of 10% to €12.1 billion for the year, which helped profit from recurring operations increased by 11% to €3.35bn.
The rise in sales and profits came amid “broad-based growth across all regions”, with sales in Asia-Rest of the World climbing by 17% to €5.2bn, Europe by 8% to €3.46bn, and the Americas by 2% to €3.48bn.
Alexandre Ricard, chairman and chief executive of Pernod Ricard, said: “Pernod Ricard once again delivered a very strong full-year performance, achieving double-digit broad based growth in sales and earnings despite a volatile environment. The relevance of our growth strategy, the desirability of our brands and the unwavering commitment and agility of our teams enabled us to gain share in most markets and strengthen pricing.
“Our transformational journey continues to accelerate through the deployment of tech and data-powered organisational, sales and marketing initiatives. We are making solid progress on our sustainability and responsibility roadmap to 2030. While the environment in FY24 remains challenging, I am confident in Pernod Ricard’s ability to deliver on its medium-term objectives.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here