Dive Brief:

• Albertsons announced on Wednesday that it added California-based Kalyana's sustainable wines to its private label lineup. 
• Shoppers can find three Kalyana wines across the grocery chain’s banners: a 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon, a 2018 Pinot Noir and a 2019 Chardonnay. The Cabernet Sauvignon and Pinot Noir normally cost $13.99, while the Chardonnay is $11.99, but all three wines are on sale for under $10. 
• The announcement builds on Albertsons’ growing lineup of sustainable brands and comes as an increasing number of grocers expand their private label alcohol selections.

Dive Insight:

Kalyana grows Albertsons’s Own Brands alcohol selection, which encompasses more than 50 brands and 140 SKUs for wine, beer and spirits.

Kalyana also bolsters Albertsons’ sustainable products among its private label lineup, like the sustainably caught seafood under its Waterfront Bistro brand and O Organics coffee, which is 100% certified sustainable by Fair Trade USA. Other sustainable efforts by Albertsons include expanding its vertically farmed produce by working with Plenty and Bowery Farming, along with pledging to reduce plastic packaging by 2025.

Kalyana, which grows its grapes in California's Central Coast, employs a number of sustainability techniques, which include growing native grasses, using recycled water from the production facility for the vineyards and relying on predatory birds for pest control.

Wine’s strong ties to land and agriculture make it a prime product category to further sustainability branding, Bourcard Nesin, beverage analyst for banking and financial services company Rabobank, wrote in an email.  

“Clearly Albertsons is picking up on signals that at least some of their wine consumers are highly motivated by sustainability,” Nesin said. “To be honest, it is kind of an obvious addition to make to their wine portfolio.”

With the pandemic prompting localities to loosen their alcohol laws and pouring alcohol sales into the grocery industry, now is an opportune time to expand private label alcohol, analysts have said, noting that private label is still a fraction of the alcohol market. 

For grocers that have already ventured into private label alcohol, like Gelson’s Markets and Giant Food, wine is a particularly popular choice due to it being an exploratory category that lends itself well to a range of price points. Nesin noted that private labels often respond to, rather than drive, trends. Albertsons has said that it wants to tap into premiumization and health and wellness trends with its alcohol portfolio.