The BIB Wine Company

Idea

Introduction

Featured as 'the 1st ever luxury Bag-in-Box wine' by Adrian Smith of the Independent, BIB Wine represents the changing face of quality wine in the UK.

We pride ourselves on serving wines of real character, whilst reducing carbon footprint, lowering prices and eliminating waste.

Wines are bought direct from the winemaker by resident Master of Wine, Justin Howard-Sneyd, who previously headed up the wines of both Waitrose and Laithwaites. Our Bag-in-Box packaging (hence BIB!) allows the wine to last longer once opened, and reduces the environmental impact and costs.

Since our launch last year, we've run bars and sold wine at pop-ups, events, and festivals, as well as through an internally developed ecommerce and subscription website ('The BIB Wine Club' is now fully subscribed and operates a waiting list). Having received excellent reviews from critics and customers alike, BIB Wine is expanding into physical bar and shop sites, whilst fuelling existing revenue channels.

Intended impact

Wine drinkers are increasingly moving away from mass produced wines and searching for wines made with more care by smaller independent winemakers.

Faced with a fast pace of life and an impending climate change crisis, the modern drinker needs a more flexible and sustainable solution.

We want people to:

Drink wine with a clear conscience.
Our BIBs have a carbon footprint up to 6x lower than the bottle, and we only work with sustainable winemakers.

Drink as much or as little as they want, when they want.
Our BIBs last for 4-6 weeks once opened. Wasting wine is a thing of the past and a glass of wine midweek is now an option.

Get wine at a fair price.
Our BIBs mean prices are 20-30% lower than bottled competition.

Try before they buy.
Our BIBs make this possible so no-one has to worry about making the wrong choice.

Our focus for the bar/shop sites is customer experience: excellent service, aspirational yet informal food, inviting interiors, and connecting the customer to the stories behind the wines.

Substantial accomplishments to date

Product development.
We have created a range of delicious wines in beautiful boxes. Following 2 events, we launched online in May 2018.

Critical recognition.
The following month we received our first review - a full column in The Daily Telegraph by Victoria Moore who said it was 'the most convincing range I've yet seen'. We've continued to receive regular and positive attention from a number of wine critics, national print, tv, magazines, and blogs.

Customer feedback & awards.
Nominated for two category awards in the People's Choice Wine Awards, we have excellent customer feedback and 4.6 stars on reviews.co.uk. We've also gained 4000+ SM followers and 4000+ members on our mailing list.

Sales & growth.
We sold the equivalent of over 11,400 bottles in the first year. We've also seen growth from Aug '18 to Aug '19 of over 200%.

Events, bars & pop-ups.
We've taken our wines to Glastonbury, The Big Feastival, Taste of London, the Winchester Wine Festival, Festival of Wine London & Glasgow, Wine Car Boot, Bath Farmers Market, pop-ups in Salisbury, Bath and Brighton, and were panelists at the London Wine Fair 2019.

On trade sales & partners...
...Include WeWork, Thirsty and Thirsty & Hungry; Yurtel at Glastonbury; Moor Beer; Brockley Brewery; Fringe Queer Film and Arts Festival; Rowley's Wine Bar; and Callow Ruscoe.

…and all of this with a small family team and limited funds.

Monetisation strategy

Our 4 highly integrated revenue streams will also drive customer loyalty:

Bar & shop (pop-up/permanent).
Low dry goods costs and direct buying will allow high margins and competitive pricing. Offering 'try before you buy' on all wines will increase conversion rates. As well as great food we can also increase average spend and data capture in the bar by upselling BIBs for delivery/take away.

Online.
bibwine.co.uk is an ecommerce and subscription website. Our wine club is now fully subscribed and operates a waiting list, whilst customer acquisition costs have reduced to below £30. Our premises will drive web traffic and allow sales through delivery companies such as Deliveroo.

Trade sales.
So far all have been inbound sales. These have proved a reliable source of income and with investment we will look to take further advantage of this opportunity.

Events.
Building on previous tasting events and bars we will utilise our new premises to host meet the winemaker, corporate and members events.

Use of proceeds

Funds will be used to expand our range, increase our marketing capacity and move into physical bar and shop premises. We will also turbocharge the growth of our subscription service, The BIB Wine Club, admitting more members from our growing waiting list as well as fuelling further customer acquisition.

Initially launching with a temporary lease, BIB Wine has partnered with Martin Bloom of Insight Retail to identify opportunities with the potential to transfer to a permanent lease after an initial period. We intend to open 2-3 sites within the first 3 years.

Co-founder Rebecca is an award-winning interior designer and has a clear plan to make full use of space to allow both shop and bar to operate with maximum potential whilst not impinging on each other. External and internal brand impact and positioning will be designed to increase footfall and sales.

We will also use a portion of the funding to increase our digital spend to local residents and workers, thus making use of significant cross marketing potential, driving footfall and website traffic/wine club customers at lower overall costs.