Francophone countries lead in Africa’s wine consuming ranking courtesy of historic influences
AFRICA – Across the globe people are opening wine bottles in bars, restaurants and homes ready to kick back and relax or add a perfect finishing touch to a meal.
In Africa, Togo, Cameroon, and Côte d’Ivoire are the top three countries with the highest proportion of the adult population who consume wine, according to a recent survey by research and intelligence firm Sagaci Research.
The study which was undertaken over a one-year period from June 2020-June 2021, assessed the percentage of adults who had recently consumed wine within a period of one month, instead of the volume of wine consumed in a particular country.
A total of 29 countries of the 54 on the continent were included in the study and the daily data was gathered from some 20,000 consumers.
From the research, Togo takes first place in terms of wine consumption, followed closely behind by Cameroon and Côte d’Ivoire, each scoring 26%, 25% and 23% respectively, of the nation’s adult population having consumed wine in the last four weeks
“Although the wine-making tradition is present in several regions of the continent, the data seems to show that the French have strongly influenced the consumption habits in other countries, as 8 out of the top 10 wine-consuming nations in Africa have a common history with France.”
Sagaci Research
Other nations in the top 10 list include the Republic of Congo, Benin, South Africa, Gabon, Burkina Faso, Nigeria and Namibia.
The study believes that apart from marketing, cultural habits and religious beliefs affect the wine trend in the continent.
“Although the wine-making tradition is present in several regions of the continent, the data seems to show that the French have strongly influenced the consumption habits in other countries, as 8 out of the top 10 wine-consuming nations in Africa have a common history with France,” stated Sagaci Research.
The findings also show that in certain nations such as Zimbabwe, women are three times more likely to have recently consumed wine than men.
“While wine consumption across the African continent remains limited overall, we are seeing very different consumption patterns across regions and the emergence of two very different consumer groups: men in West Africa and females in Southern and Eastern Africa,” remarked Julien Garcier, Managing Director of Sagaci Research.
A prime example is South Africa, where 22% of females have recently consumed wine, in comparison to only 15% of males.
Likewise in Kenya, where advertisements seem to be heavily targeted towards the female population, almost twice as many females responded as having recently consumed wine than their male counterparts.
Conversely, the five countries with the highest proportion of male consumption are Morocco, Gabon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt and Togo.
In the year ahead, a number of key trends stemming from the Covid-19 pandemic will shape the global wine market.
Overall, wine consumption has been severely affected by Covid-19, with the downturn of the on-trade, damage to travel and tourism, and a weakened economy driving what IWSR estimates will be a -9.7% volume and -9.5% value decline for the market in 2020.
