“Why wine costs up to six times more in Kenya than in South Africa”
TNX reports:
“’The challenges that we face, not just in Kenya, but in Africa generally, are the high levels of import tax,’ Greg Guy, the International Director of DGB, a South African premium wine and spirits producer and exporter, said. ‘You know, a bottle of wine here is costing you five or six times more than it would in South Africa.’
“With a relatively high excise taxation, it is difficult for a consumer to have a glass of wine or a bottle of wine when compared to a beer or a local spirit; the cost differential is so high. …
“Even so, notable shifts in wine consumption have taken shape in recent days, growing the sector in leaps and bounds in terms of the diversity of wines available for people, knowledge, and also how people enjoy them.
“’So many Kenyans are very interested in wine. It’s not a luxury, but it’s sort of becoming a trend. At all social gatherings, wine is a must-have lately,’ Meera Karia, the Director of Business Development at Viva Global Ltd, said. …
“‘Kenya has very knowledgeable, very educated people who want to learn and taste wine. Wine is a healthy, natural product,’ Mr. Guy said, adding that it would appeal to Gen-Zs and Millennials who do not want to drink more.”
Assessment
This story illustrates how the alcohol industry deploys its well-worn playbook: presenting all forms of taxation as excessive, warning about smuggling, and portraying alcohol as a lifestyle product unfairly constrained by policy.
The South Africa–Kenya comparison is deliberately used to fuel a narrative of Kenya as an outlier in alcohol taxation, while ignoring that evidence-based alcohol taxes are proven measures to prevent and reduce alcohol harm.
The framing also seeks to erase a central fact: in Kenya, nearly 60% of the adult population are lifetime abstainers. The contrast could not be clearer – while the alcohol industry claims wine is becoming a “must-have,” the majority of Kenyans do not consume alcohol at all. At the same time, the wine industry is pushing health claims (“natural,” “healthy,” “less sugar”) to attract potential consumers, despite overwhelming evidence that there is no healthy amount of alcohol consumption.
For advocates, this is a case to expose the alcohol industry’s harmful propaganda that combines economic claims with cultural normalisation, and health myths to sow doubt, deceive, and undermine people’s support for raising alcohol taxes.