Bacardi International, after the start of a large-scale invasion of Russian troops in Ukraine, like many other international companies, announced the cessation of exports of its products to the Russian market. However, as The Bell discovered, Bacardi continues to ship to Russia and the profit of the company’s Russian subsidiary – Bacardi Rus – has tripled in 2022 – from 1.5 billion to almost 4.7 billion rubles. . On this subject writes Meduza.
In addition, the contract bottling agreement for Bacardi-owned William Lawson’s whiskey brand at the Georgievsky Distillery continues to operate. According to open data, only at the end of October 2022, Zavod Georgievsky.Traditions of Quality LLC received 227,000 liters of distillate with an alcohol content of 65.8% from John Dewar & Sons Limited. When diluted to 40% drinking strength, The Bell calculated, from this amount you can get 373,400 liters of whiskey.
Bacardi also announced that it would stop investing in advertising. Nevertheless, writes The Bell, Bacardi Rus’ expenditure on product promotion exceeded 6.7 billion rubles in 2022, which is only slightly less than a year earlier, when 7.042 billion rubles had been spent for these purposes.
Thanks to the company’s Russian partners, Bacardi products can also be purchased in the annexed territories – in Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea.
Bell’s inquiries received no response from Bacardi’s US press and marketing. Sergey Ponomarev, Bacardi’s director for government relations in Eastern Europe, also left the publication’s request for comment unanswered.
A March 2022 statement posted on Bacardi’s website condemning the invasion of Ukraine and promising to halt exports to Russia and freeze advertising investment has been redacted. The discontinuation of the supply of products to the Russian Federation and the rejection of promotion costs are no longer mentioned there.
Source: delfi
