Berry Bros to pull out of Heathrow

Joe Bates

Print Article E-Mail Article E-Mail Author

The fine wines retailer will leave its four stores at the UK's biggest airport by the end of the summer

Fine wine and spirits merchant Berry Bros & Rudd has announced it is to close its four stores at London Heathrow airport within the next three months. 

The UK retailer said the combination of high rents and the low margins associated with fine wine had made trading at the airport increasingly unprofitable. The shock decision comes just 14 months after Berry Bros. opened new 250sq ft (23.25sq m) stores in all four Heathrow terminals, offering a new Wine Collection pre-order service for customers travelling inside the European Union.

Berry Bros. retail director Robin McMillan commented: "Airports are wonderful environments for luxury goods, but the current combination of some of the world¹s most competitive retail floor space with the relatively low margins applicable to fine wines ultimately made it impossible for us to compete for space."

Mark Riches, managing director of BAA Global Retail and World Duty Free (WDF), added: "We obviously respect Berry¹s decision and wish them every success in further developing their domestic and international business and I very much hope we can work with them again in the future ‹ this may be the close of the current chapter, but I sincerely hope is not the end of the story.

"We will now take the fine wine offer into our own core business and seek to grow it as a category on the back of the success of our high performing liquor business. I have no doubt in doing that we will take onboard the valuable lessons that evolved from Berrys' pioneering approach."

Berry Bros has run stores at Heathrow since 1994.