McWilliam’s Reveals Portfolio Reductions

McWilliam’s Wines revealed this week that a reduction of over 800 SKUs from its portfolio has been part of a wider restructure of the business undertaken during CEO Rob Blackwell’s tenure with the business. Just 300 products have been maintained out of the 1,100 that were previously part of the company’s portfolio.

“We’ve gone through an aggressive exercise in scaling back the number of brands and products, which has now enabled us to focus on the core brands and products within the portfolio”, Blackwell said.

The business has scaled back from 23 brands to just six, including McWilliam’s, Evans & Tate and Mt Pleasant as its core brands, as well as imported brands Henkell, Taittinger and Mateus.

To accomplish this, McWilliam’s sold Brand’s of Coonawara to Casella Family Brands late last year, enabling McWilliam’sReveals NPD to increase its investment in the core brands both domestically and in the international markets.

To help grow these brands, Blackwell says McWilliam’s will be focusing on new product development, particularly within its table wines and fortified wines.

“The Australian wine market is growing through the introduction of new products – that’s the key element of growth”, Blackwell said.

“We’re identifying new opportunities and getting them to market. Through our NPD process we’ve really focused on speed to market and working efficiently. We’re working on 12-14 weeks from concept through to shelf.”

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