The supermarket chain Colruyt has announced that it will cease unsupervised wine tastings at it stores. Up until now customers at Colruyt supermarkets across Belgium have been able to help themselves to wine that had been opened for them to taste. As the tastings were unsupervised the customer could drink as much as the wine as they wished, of course providing that there was still some left in the bottle.
Now like other supermarkets such as Delhaize, Colruyt has decided to instead organise supervised wine tastings during which customers can try one or more of the wines that are on sale in the store and receive advice from the store’s wine expert.
Colruyt says that there will be wine tastings at least once a week at all of its supermarkets. The news that Colruyt is ditching unsupervised wine tastings at its stores first appeared in the daily ‘Het Nieuwsblad’ and has been confirmed by Colruyt’s Head of Sales and Promotions Virginie Vandenperre. The new tasting regime will be introduced from next week.
The news comes at the same time as the German-owned supermarket chain Aldi announced that it is dropped the brand name Pirato from the own-brand crisps that it sells in its Belgian stores.
Colruyt says that an unstaffed stand where alcoholic drink is available free of charge is no longer appropriate in the modern world. Ms Vandenperre told VRT News that “There were people that drunk too much. However, at the same time we also saw that overall the amount consumed was falling off”.
“Furthermore, with the new system we will be better able to meet the customers’ needs. They will still be able to taste, but also receive advice from an expert”.
A wine expert will staff the tasting stand at least once a week. How often, for how long and when exactly the stand will be open has still to be decided.
The changes with regard to wine tasting will have no impact on the other products that Colruyt offer its customers to taste (biscuits, cheese, cooked meat,…). Virginie Vandenperre reassures us that “You will still be able to find things to try on the biscuit shelves, among the fruit and veg, etc".