TradeDepot, a B2B distribution and data-driven consumer goods company, in partnership with Italian winery Bosio Family Estates, has established the Amabile di Rosa in Nigeria to address the demand for sweet wine.
The Chief Executive Officer of TradeDepot, Onyekachi Izukanne, said the launch aims to deepen wine culture in Nigeria by fostering domestic grape cultivation while expanding the footprint of Amabile tailored to Nigerian tastes.
The company also sees a significant opportunity in the younger consumers, estimating a $420 million market.
While the immediate focus is on the Nigerian market, Izukanne said TradeDepot’s long-term vision aims to meet domestic demand and also position Nigerian-made wines for export across West Africa, further boosting the nation’s economy and creating a new avenue for regional trade.
“TradeDepot seeks to not only reduce Nigeria’s reliance on imported wines but also create significant job opportunities for young people and stimulate economic growth.”
According to him, the company also plans to explore the use of local fruits such as mangoes to manufacture high-quality, tasty wines, further diversifying the domestic production base.
He explained that TradeDepot’s foray into wine distribution comes on the heels of their data-driven insights.
Using data insights,he indicated that the company observed a sharp uptick in sweet wine consumption, driven largely by younger drinkers under 45.
He specifically noted that preferences are shifting toward wines that are easier on the palate, often sweeter, and pair well with Nigeria’s spicy cuisine, adding that the COVID-19 pandemic further accelerated this trend, with a global spike in sweet wine sales influencing local tastes.
He said Nigerians now consume around 50 million bottles of wine each year, with the number rising steadily.
“All of these put together show that there is a very significant opportunity for sweet wines in our market. What we have identified is not only the opportunity but also that there is a big gap for quality sweet wine.
To leverage the demand, Izukanne said the partnership with Bosio Family Estates, a renowned Italian winery famous for its Moscato wines, will create a product that is sweet, high-quality, accessible, and enjoyable that consumers consistently choose as their preference.
Izukanne said just by the launch of the product, over the course of the next two years, it is expected that over 4000 jobs will be created in markets within the region.
“And this will be a mixture of jobs coming from the more upstream activities of getting the product in and getting it into trade, but also the fact that as a distribution business, with this, we are working with many distribution partners, setting up distribution points across the country, driving sales into retail. And so you have a lot of commercial and distribution players and a lot of others who get gainfully employed because of this effort.
He described the wine as “sweet and fun to drink, yet serious, uncomplicated, and well balanced.”
He said what the company does is spend time understanding, “based on the insights available to us, what is happening in the market and what should be happening in the market.
On the reason for the choice of name, he said: “Our tagline of Amabile is a celebration of friendship. Amabile in Italian means friendly. It’s a take on the word amiable in English, it means friendly, it means sweet, it means welcome.”
Director, Bosio Family Estates, Francesco Bosio, said while in search for a good product, “we needed a wine product that can befit exactly the market. So we did many experiments with our production team to find the right level of sugar.
“We are proud to bring Amabile di Rosa to Nigeria,” he said.