Cachaça exports decline significantly during COVID
This week, the Brazilian Government released numbers on cachaça sales during the first half of 2020. I want to focus today on how awful the export numbers are. And, despite the fact that they are down significantly, these numbers show just how poorly cachaça does around the world, even in the best of times.
According to the study, domestic cachaça sales are down by 20%. Cachaça exports or I should say, purchases abroad are down by about a third. The total exports of cachaça amounted to just over $4.5 million for the first half of the year, so hopefully, about $9 million for the year. That’s for the ENTIRE world. Now, even if you say it’s down by a third, that just means the previous year, exports were at $6.8 million or around $14 million for the year. FOR THE ENTIRE WORLD.
Remember, this is the third most consumed spirit globally.
I don’t know what I expected upon seeing this report. And I did know that under one percent of cachaça sold is exported. But these numbers are simply shockingly bad.
There’s only one reason why this is the case: an inability to communicate clearly about cachaça. I’m not just suggesting the language used to promote cachaça isn’t sufficient, I’m saying that the entire landscape, from producers to supporters, etc., have not created an adequate introduction to the spirit.
On a Facebook group about cachaça, of which I’m a part, one participant from outside Brazil, upon viewing these numbers, complained that cachaça should market itself as rum and that its lack of global appeal was in trying to be different.
Certainly, cachaça is a sugarcane-based spirit, and some rums do use sugarcane juice rather than molasses as a base. However, rum is limited in terms of palate. Oak is the only wood used in the aging process. Cachaça, even if it called itself Brazilian Rum, which it will never do, would still require an explanation about the variety of woods used.
What I’m suggesting is that cachaça is complex, and it needs to be simplified for the gringos. Why should they care? What does this spirit bring that others do not? Everyone in the cachaça business must ask themselves these questions. But the industry can’t jump on board with rum. That would simply not solve the problems it faces.
Do I have all the answers? No. But now, I’m certainly thinking about a better way to communicate, one that simplifies consumer understanding.
