Like every industry reliant on sea freight, grapegrowers and winemakers are feeling the impacts of freight and shipping disruptions.
“Costs are increasing dramatically across the board and it’s proving very difficult to access spots in containers over recent months,” says Tony Battaglene, chief executive of Australian Grape & Wine.
“This will have an impact on our exports in the short-to-medium-term.
“But these concerns extend beyond securing container space for exporters.
“Grape and wine businesses are facing significant delays on many of the inputs they need ahead of vintage 2022.”
The representative bodies for Australia’s growers, winemakers and wine industry suppliers are urging businesses to plan early and work collaboratively as the industry’s supply-chain struggles to manage major disruptions and cost increases in freight and shipping.
Australian Grape & Wine and Wine Industry Suppliers Australia Ltd (WISA) are joining forces to get the message out to members and the industry
“It’s never been more important for grapegrowers and winemakers to be talking to their suppliers as early as possible ahead of the coming vintage,” says WISA executive officer Shirley Fraser.
“We want to make sure all businesses understand how major this impact will be so that we can start working together to manage the potential problems ahead of us.
“In preparing for next vintage, businesses cannot rely on taking the usual just-in-time approach to securing the inputs they usually rely on.”
Mr Battaglene says, “This is a complex global problem without any easy solutions.
“We’ll keep working to explore potential remedies, but in the meantime we need to work together to understand the impacts of these cost increases and delays and engage with our supply chain partners in an empathetic and collaborative way.”
Australian Grape & Wine is hosting a free Pre vintage livestreaming event on 4 November, which will provide an outlook on this issue and the likely impacts of China’s tariffs on Australian wines.
Photo by Timelab Pro on Unsplash
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