The Famous Grouse

The Famous Grouse has now been Scotland’s no.1 whisky for 40 years. As the nation’s favourite, it has continued to experience strong demand, helping the brand to largely offset a long-term decline in the blended Scotch Whisky category.

Last year, the brand grew both global volume and turnover, gaining market share in most of its key markets. This positive performance was mainly driven by strong results in the UK, where The Famous Grouse attained record market share and brand power scores, which measure the brand’s relationship with its consumers, as well as significant volume growth in Sweden, the Netherlands, Poland and Russia.

We have continued to invest in the brand, chiefly through a global campaign inviting consumers to “Spend Time in Grouse Country”. Thanks to skilful local adaptation in retail and through mainly digital communication, the campaign inspired consumers to enjoy their “everyday deserved moments” with The Famous Grouse.

The brand’s premium expressions, including Smoky Black and its Bourbon, Ruby, Wine and Toasted Cask series are showing increased consumer demand with double-digit volume growth. The geographical footprint has expanded and the premium expressions are now present in 24 markets.

There is further evidence that there is room for increased innovation in contemporary Scotch Whisky and the team behind The Famous Grouse will continue to develop opportunities in that category to recruit new drinkers into the brand.

Over the past 12 months, we broadly maintained brand investment and made good progress in embedding efficiencies, leading to reduced overheads but as our profits were adversely impacted by higher cost of goods, profit for the full year ended with mid-single digit decline.

We see early evidence that during the COVID-19 crisis consumers have gravitated towards well-known brands they trust, at accessible price points, which they can buy at retail or online. This puts The Famous Grouse in a positive position for coming out strongly from this global crisis.

While the category is expected to continue facing challenges in many of our key markets in the years ahead, our ambition remains to build “the most loved whisky for everyday deserved moments” and deliver consistent profit growth over the long term. This will enable us to share Scotland and the UK’s no.1 whisky with many more consumers, in and beyond the 100+ markets where it is currently enjoyed.