The Covid-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on the South African wine industry and all of those relying on the industry for their livelihoods. During this time, it has become clear that the sustainability and prosperity of our industry coincides with the well-being and prosperity of South Africa as a whole. As an industry, we haven’t always gotten things right.
That is why we have been helping the CEOs of DGB, Diageo, Distell, Heineken, Pernod Ricard, and SAB to shape their thinking in forming a new federation that would unite the whole of the drinks industry in areas where we all have a shared interest. Today, the Drinks Federation of South Africa (DF-SA) has officially been launched.
The Drinks Federation of South Africa is a united, purposeful, and proactive endeavour with a vision of a drinks industry that is valued for the breadth and depth of its contribution to a prosperous, just, and safer South Africa, and for meaningfully contributing to progress in responsible drinking behaviours and outcomes, both real and perceived. With this new federation in place, we can cover more ground with a unified voice.
The DF-SA will serve as a platform for engagement with policymakers, regulators, the media, and community partners. To support its work, the DF-SA will be a place for networking, sharing of best practices and information on matters of common interest; leading the industry’s Code of Conduct and a transformation framework; and bringing innovation, scale, and visibility to the industry’s efforts to address the illicit trade and promote market formalisation, among other things. Finally, it will seek to bring scale, the science behind behaviour change, and fresh insights to responsible drinking interventions by uniting with Aware.org and collaborating with companies on their responsibility initiatives.
Vinpro believes DF-SA will bring harmony and coordination to our stakeholder engagement, allowing us to focus on the things that matter most to us. In practice, this means that the DF-SA will take the lead in coordinating responses to Liquor Act Amendments and government policies (national or provincial, regional, or global) involving the marketing and availability of alcohol, underage drinking, FASD, gender-based violence, drinking and driving, and responsible drinking.
DF-SA will have no role in excise tax policy or other matters specific to a particular sector (e.g., trade policy, classification, or sector-specific qualification standards). This new federation will rely on our support to continue to measure and report the wine industry’s overall socio-economic and transformation impact, with the aim of rolling up the data into a combined industry-wide narrative.
We look forward to joining forces with the DF-SA.
