Drinks Retailing Awards 2017 winners revealed

Lidl, Waitrose and Sainsbury's were among the retailers honoured at the Drinks Retailing Awards as leading lights from across the drinks trade converged on The Dorchester on Tuesday night.

OLN was joined on stage by The Wine Show’s Joe Fattorini to hand out gongs to retailers that stood out as the best in the business over the past year.

Lidl has grown faster than any other multiple in spirits, cider and sparkling wine and also saw strong sales increases in beer and still wine. Store openings played a part in this growth, but it has also placed great emphasis on its BWS range in a bid to attract new shoppers and won a lot of tasting awards and praise. It was named Multiple Spirits Retailer of the Year and Supermarket of the Year.

German rival Aldi posted the strongest performance in wine and also topped a consumer poll OLN ran in partnership with YouGov on which multiples have done the best job on their wine range, leading it to a third consecutive Multiple Wine Retailer of the Year award.

Waitrose has enjoyed another strong year and won Multiple Beer Retailer of the Year and Drinks Buying Team of the Year after impressing judges with its wonderful range, strong consumer rating and surging sales.

Sainsbury’s won Best Multiple Champagne Retailer and Corporate Responsibility Retailer of the Year after proving itself to be a leading advocate of the Community Alcohol Partnerships scheme and the Think 25 initiative and making a range of environmental and social commitments.

Tesco won Best Retailer Promotion for its superbly executed Summer Drinks Festival. The Co-op was named Multiple Cider Retailer of the Year to cap a strong year in which it excelled across the board.

Oddbins was named Specialist Retailer of the Year, Virgin Wines won the online retailer gong, Hedonism in London’s Mayfair won the Luxury Retailer award and Inverarity Morton was named best wholesaler.

The event, held in The Ballroom at The Dorchester on Park Lane, was packed full of leading independent retailers, and several were delighted to take home awards.

They proved what a buoyant, dynamic sector of the market this is with their fantastic approaches to buying, ranging, education and customer service.

Below is a full list of the winners, and please check out the next issue of OLN for in-depth coverage of the night.

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