When I first published a paper based on an evaluation of the impact of the country?of?origin effects on the consumption patterns of “made in” Nigeria Guinness as opposed to Guinness “owned by” Ireland in 2011, I had not imagined that the alcoholic beverage market was being disrupted.
Since that paper was published, there have been numerous manifestations of the changing landscape of the booze industry. With the rise of craft beers and transformation of Prosecco to Jay Z’s decamping from Crystal to Armand Da Brignac (aka Ace of Spades) coupled with the scramble for Africa orchestrated by big brands such as Heineken.
Fastforward to a recent report on Tanzania, which is now Africa’s second-biggest wine producer after South Africa producing arguably tsome of the best and sweetest wines in Africa. Who would have thought about this only a few years before?
According to a recent report by How Africa News entitled “Here are 9 Most Popular Tanzanian Wines that Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta Can’t Get Enough Of”:
“Grapeines were first introduced to Tanzania’s central zone in 1938 by missionaries from the Hombolo Catholic Mission, who, after independence assisted in seting up the first commercial production in Dodoma.”
The same article goes on to provide some insight into that place called Dodoma:
“Dodoma is Tanzania’s major grape growing region and the four acre grape farm at Dodoma’s Isanga Prison was the first government institution to invest in wine, in 1969 it built a winery plant and achieved international recognition by becoming Tanzania’s sole buyer of grapes for wine processing.”
The rest as the saying goes, is history!
Talking about history the story of religion and booze linked to the origins of Tanzania Wine can be linked to the biblical narratives of the Wedding at Cana where Jesus turned Water into Wine. See John 2:1-12.
Likewise, the rise of South Africa in this sector disrupting the old guard such as Bordeaux and California, i staking on a new turn from the East Coast of Africa.
Finally, let’s remain mindful of the fact that this is agriculture, and that is a key focus for the development of Africa – Artificial Intelligence, Agri-Tech or whatever other nomenclature exists out there, we need a tangible, critical mass of this nature to secure the future of Africa and its Agricultural sector.
Key highlights:
The Grapevine
Missionaries and Grapes
The Miracle at Cana
The Wine Trail
Craft beer
Tanzania
South Africa
Dodoma Wines
Presidential Wines
Nigerian Guinness
Nnamdi O. Madichie, PhD, is Director of the Centre for Research and Enterprise at the Bloomsbury Institute in London. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (FCIM). He has published extensively in the areas of Marketing and Entrepreneurship in Emerging Market contexts. He is author of “Made?in” Nigeria or “owned?by” Ireland? published in Management Decision in 2011.
Madichie, N. 2011. “Made?in” Nigeria or “owned?by” Ireland?”, Management Decision, 49(10), pp. 1612-1622. https://doi.org/10.1108/