James Bond favorite Belvedere Vodka made an announcement earlier this month: the brand has now transitioned to being fully organic. Owned by French luxury company LVMH, the transition makes it one of the first major spirit brands to go organic, signaling how premium brands might appeal to values-led trends, particularly in a stagnant category.
“When we pledged to become an organic brand, our consumers fully supported our commitment,” said Sophie Clerc, vodka brand director at Moët Hennessy U.S. “From the responses we are receiving, we see a tremendous interest and enthusiasm for this new iteration of Belvedere Vodka.”
The brand is framing the updated vodka not as a new product, but rather an evolution of its “iconic vodka” produced at one of the oldest Polish distilleries. The recipe now features 100% organic-certified diamond rye, crafted using the same proprietary process used for its non-organic predecessor. A Belvedere Organic Infusions line debuted two years ago, the initial step in its transition.
“Organic ingredients are more difficult, time consuming and costly to produce, but we are proud to commit to using only 100% organic-certified ingredients,” Clerc said.
Getting organic certification is both costly and time-consuming, requiring access to organic ingredients, like grains, which are often limited in availability. Backed by the same owner of luxury spirit brands like Hennessy, Belvedere has a leg up on companies who may not have the resources to make the transition. Craft and smaller brands like Prairie Organic Spirits and Frankly Vodka, which factored organic certification into their start-up costs, are also hoping they’ll be well positioned to meet an increasing consumer interest in sustainable and wellness-oriented products.
In an interview, former Belvedere CEO Rodney Williams mentioned that research in five markets conducted by the company pre-pandemic revealed the importance of the environment among consumers in the 25 to 34 age range as a deal breaker and a purchase driver. That lines up with industry data: almost half of U.S. alcohol drinkers are positively influenced by a company’s sustainability initiatives, according to the IWSR.
Products with sustainability and social responsibility claims have experienced 8.1% more growth over the past five years compared to those without, according to NIQ’s 2023 consumer outlook report. There seems to be whitespace for premium products as well: 72% of global consumers expressed their willingness to pay more for products with sustainable features, but 28% reported difficulty in finding such options. Still, sales data is yet to show if there’s a consumer preference for organic certification over other sustainability claims.
An organic label is not the only way brands are attempting to reach environmentally or more health conscious spirit drinkers, but it may cut through the marketing noise — especially in a crowded segment losing steam to agave spirits. While vodka led in revenue last year, tequila was the top driver of growth 2022 at $890 million and is set to overtake vodka as America’s top spirit. Other recent high-end organic spirit debuts include Lance Collins’ Casa Azul tequila, whose CEO, Bryan Crowley, boasted about its organic status as a differentiator from the increasing competition in the segment.
Armed with new campaign images of longtime endorser Daniel Craig, Belvedere is positioning its new organic label in social and paid media platforms as an enhanced signifier of luxury for a brand already known as a top shelf vodka.
“It’s the same Polish vodka we all know and love, simply elevated,” Clerc said.
The Belvedere bottle got a refresh too, incorporating a new spin on the Belvedere Palace motif, upgrading the label to better reflect its organic status, and adding a sparkling gold lid to represent rye’s golden color and the organic vodka’s “rarity.”
Revenue from the spirits and cognac segment of LVMH fell by 5% in Q1 2023 as Hennessy Cognac sales dipped in China and the U.S., the company reported in its first quarter revenue earnings report. While other major spirit companies have seen growth driven by their tequila and whiskey portfolios, LVMH’s wine and spirits arm, Moët Hennessy, as well as Rémy Cointreau are suffering from weak U.S. demand for cognac. The group, however, recorded “solid revenue growth” for Belvedere.