The Raventós Codorníu Group embraces sustainability and incorporates into its business logic the mission of contributing to improving the planet. The historic Catalan company, controlled since 2018 by the American private equity fund Carlyle, has gone full throttle to convert most of its estates to the organic production system and be a global benchmark in the production of wine products from crops free of fungicides, pesticides, and chemical products, where preventive agriculture is practiced instead of curative.
"We want to be the fastest-growing global sustainable wine company by 2025," assures Sergio Fuster, CEO of Raventós Codorníu, who has incorporated a new corporate purpose into the company: "to give value to the land." "Until now we have extracted value from the vines, but now we must also give back value and put sustainability at the center of our decisions," says the executive, who before joining Codorníu a little over a year ago had worked in multinationals such as Kellogg's, Danone, United Biscuits, and Procter & Gamble.
According to Fuster, Raventós Codorníu is already currently the leader in the production of organic cava (or organic, according to Anglo-Saxon terminology), with a total of 4.77 million bottles marketed in the last year. This figure translates into a market share of 35%, since according to official statistics from the Cava Regulatory Council, a total of 13.78 million bottles of organic cava were sold in 2020.
Raventós Codorníu assures that this figure of 4.77 million will grow exponentially and, this year, expects to double it, reaching organic cava sales of between nine and ten million bottles. In total, between wine (50% of production) and cava (50%), the group markets 50 million bottles a year, half of which are exported.
Three of the company's brands, Raimat, Parxet, and Titiana, are already 100% organic, but the great challenge lies in the transformation of the Codorníu brand, the group's flagship. The goal is that by 2024 all bottles of cava of the Codorníu brand will already be certified as organic.
"In 2024, half of our business will already be eco, because the Codorníu brand generates 50% of our billing volume," highlights the executive. This weight of organic products will grow, because other brands such as Mont-Ferrant, Raventós d'Alella, Scala Dei, Poblet, Portal de Montsant, Legaris, and Bodegas Bilbaínas are also already in transition.
This announcement of a total commitment to the organic market comes at a sweet moment for the company, which says it has left behind years of difficulties and sales stagnation and begun a new stage of accelerated growth and market share gain. "The increase in sales is significant, we are above pre-pandemic levels and reaping the rewards of the intense work we have done to expand our commercial activity," says Fuster, who has practically renewed the entire management team. According to the CEO, month after month, the group registers growth of between 30% and 40% compared to 2020, and between 10% and 20% compared to the months prior to the pandemic.
Raventós Codorníu groups fifteen wineries in Spain, Argentina, and California (USA) and had a turnover of 180 million euros in the fiscal year ending June 2020. The goal of Carlyle and the new management team is to reach sales of 400 million in the medium-long term and increase exports from the current 50% to 70% or 80%, maintaining the commitment to both wine and cava and promoting organic production.
This business decision implies a significant economic cost that the company does not want to quantify globally, but rather with a very palpable example: the purchase of organic grapes implies an increase in raw material costs of 37.5%, since the price paid to grape growers for each kilo of conventional grapes is 32 euro cents, compared to the 44 cents they receive for organic grapes.
According to Fuster, this extra cost "will not be passed on to the consumer." "We are not going to raise prices, organic cava can be enjoyed at the same price," he assures, after noting that this entire strategy has not been improvised, but rather the group started it many years ago. In Raimat, for example, insecticides stopped being used 20 years ago. "I am reaping the work done by my predecessors," states the CEO. Part of the Raventós family, founders of a company with 460 years of history, still forms part of the group's capital, although now as a minority.
Codorníu Raventós wineries currently control an area of organic vineyards totaling 3,570 hectares, of which 50% are already certified as organic and the other 50% are in the process of transformation, since the seal is not obtained until the end of the third harvest. According to the group's operations and winery director, Diego Pinilla, in 2022, 88% of the surface will already be 100% organic, with more than 3,000 transformed hectares. "The technical challenge is enormous, but this process led by Codorníu will mark a true milestone for the viticultural transformation of Penedès," assures the winemaker. According to Pinilla, Codorníu has signed long-term purchase contracts with a group of 200 winegrowers, who are also financially assisted so that they can face this process of migration to organic farming.
The notable increase in certified area expected for the 2022 harvest will allow the Codorníu brand to take a big leap, as its flagship product, the Anna de Codorníu cava, will be able to enter the market as 100% organic from 2023. Meanwhile, the brand has launched the organic cava Codorníu Cuvée Original in homage to the first cava produced by the firm in 1872.