France Government To Spend €200M To Destroy Wine As Demand Falls

[RAMROD 117,048]

The French government has announced it is to set aside €200m to fund the destruction of surplus wine production in an attempt to support struggling producers and shore up prices.

Several major wine-producing regions in France, particularly the Bordeaux area, are struggling because of a cocktail of problems including changes in consumption habits, the cost of living crisis and the after-effects of Covid-19.

A fall in demand for wine has led to over-production, a sharp fall in prices, and major financial difficulties for up to one in three winemakers in the Bordeaux region, according to the local farmers’ association.

An initial EU fund of €160m for wine destruction has been topped up to €200m by the French government, the agriculture minister, Marc Fesneau, told reporters on Friday.

The money was “aimed at stopping prices collapsing and so that winemakers can find sources of revenue again”, but he stressed that the industry needed to “look to the future, think about consumer changes ... and adapt”.

The south-west Languedoc region, the country’s largest wine area, known for its full-bodied reds, has been hit hard by the fall in wine demand.

The alcohol from destroyed wine can be sold to companies for use in non-food products such as hand sanitiser, cleaning products and perfume.

In June, the agriculture ministry also announced €57m to fund the pulling up of about 9,500 hectares of vines in the Bordeaux region, while other public funds are available to encourage grape-growers to switch to other products, such as olives.

Europe last suffered a “wine lake” in the mid-2000s, which forced the EU to reform its farm policy to reduce the massive overproduction of wine that was being stimulated by its own subsidies.

The 27-member bloc still spends €1.06bn annually on the sector, according to EU figures.

As well as a long-term trend of consumers switching to beer and other drinks, the industry was badly hit by the Covid pandemic that shut restaurants and bars worldwide, leading to a sharp fall in sales.

Recent rises in the prices of food and fuel, linked to rocketing global energy prices and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, have also seen buyers reduce their spending on non-essential goods such as wine.

 

https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/25/france-fund-destroying-excess-wine-demand-falls

 

 

[weed 78,937]

Why destroy when you can throw party? 

[FATCAT 60,888]

52 minutes ago, weed said:

Why destroy when you can throw party? 

Right? Reminds me of the wine shop passage from a Tale of Two Cities..

 

[Roughhouse Dandy 13,612]

Capitalism is evil

[weed 78,937]

13 minutes ago, FATCAT said:

Right? Reminds me of the wine shop passage from a Tale of Two Cities..

 

I just read the passage now, very interesting! Beautiful writing.

[Natalia Kills 415]

17 minutes ago, Roughhouse Dandy said:

Capitalism is evil

To be fair, capitalism isn't the main cause behind the issue here.

In this instance, it's the intervention of the EU to subsidize wine production and the external market factors of the war in Ukraine and changes in spending brought on by the pandemic. In fact, if a purely capitalist, the market would have corrected this issue more quickly and there would be less waste.

As with any commodity, slow-to-produce product like wine, very few economic models could find a way to effectively dodge this issue.

You could theoretically give it away for free but that would negatively affect any capitalist/socialist/communist/gift economic model. 

This is more misfortune and poor timing.

[Roughhouse Dandy 13,612]

20 minutes ago, Natalia Kills said:

You could theoretically give it away for free but that would negatively affect any capitalist/socialist/communist/gift economic model. 

This is capitalist thinking. To destroy product in the interest of saving profit is late stage capitalism at work. 

[AsleepOnTheCeiling 6,965]

Should we spend €200m to destroy wine people can't afford to buy? Or spend €200m to help ensure people can afford wine? 

[BornAsUnic0rn 2,245]

9 minutes ago, TortureMeOnReplay said:

Should we spend €200m to destroy wine people can't afford to buy? Or spend €200m to help ensure people can afford wine? 

There‘s too much wine for too little demand, so it‘s gotten cheaper. So cheap seemingly that the wine-makers think it makes more sense to destroy some of it than to lower the price more. It‘s literally done to drive up prices again and make it profitable. 

[Roughhouse Dandy 13,612]

47 minutes ago, BornAsUnic0rn said:

There‘s too much wine for too little demand, so it‘s gotten cheaper. So cheap seemingly that the wine-makers think it makes more sense to destroy some of it than to lower the price more. It‘s literally done to drive up prices again and make it profitable. 

There may be too little demand for the price they want, but there is not too little demand. 

[Earthling 3,701]

Okay I’m not a wine expert obviously, but can’t they just lock that stuff down in some dusty cellar until demand increases?

OR

process it into affordable resveratrol so we can all age backwards 

[Ayesha Erotica 1,924]

This is so absurd.

Inflation has made people poorer, so they buy less luxury goods and this affects wine. Wine getting cheaper as a result would be good because people are less rich because of inflation. So the market corrects itsself. So they could afford wine (again). But noooo horrifying French government as always steps in to complicate things for the worse. Now wine is artificially made more expensive with TAXPAYER'S money. Can you imagine this - the state makes people work for their own disadvantage - This is so absurd people in France go to work from 8:00 to 18:00 to pay taxes so that their wine is more expensive than it initially was supposed to be; wine that they would have gotten cheaper if state exploiment authority didn't control it. 

 

I am happy that Niger and Mali have freed themselves recently from the neo-colonial chains of France and now don't have to import extraorbitantly expensive wine and other products from France anymore, so that local markets can blossom on their own, and I'm hoping for more African countries to be freed from having to support French state-subsidized industries.

 

[Economy 52,848]

16 hours ago, Roughhouse Dandy said:

Capitalism is evil

Like legit, donate it or something. Gift it to some poor 3rd world nation that has the infrastructure means to accept it or something

 

Most types of wine do not spoil easy and last quite a while. Its not like were talking about a product thats gonna spoil fast and isnt worth the trouble or time to figure out how to logistically transfer it somewhere else

[Railing 2,799]

The mentality of "this isn't selling, so we're gonna take the effort of destroying it so no one can have it" is absolutely disgusting

[Red 99,108]

I'm not an expert but that sounds like a dumb decision