The vision and innovation underpinning the Australian wine industry’s $40 billion a year input into the national economy will be showcased at the sector’s premier awards ceremony in Adelaide in October.
The 2018 National Wine Industry Impact Awards celebrate the excellence of enterprises that enhance the competitiveness and capability of the nation’s grape and wine industry while developing exciting new consumer experiences.
The awards are supported by WBM – Australia’s Wine Business Magazine. There will be a special supplement in the September-October issue.
Nominations have been submitted across categories including grapegrowing, winemaking, engineering, packaging, distribution and logistics, marketing and communications and tourism.
A Start-up category also recognises emerging businesses that introduce new concepts, technologies, services and solutions in the industry that is the sixth largest wine producer in the world and the fifth globally in terms of export value.
The Wine Industry Impact Awards are the initiative of Wine Industry Suppliers Australia (WISA), which represents a broad landscape of businesses and value chain partnerships in the sector that employs more than 170,000 people.
WISA executive officer Matthew Moate said the awards, to be presented before 400 industry representatives at the Adelaide Town Hall, would demonstrate the quality and value-adding aspects of the industry.
The coveted Start-up Award includes 10 entrants in categories covering grapegrowing, winemaking, distribution and logistics, marketing and communications and tourism.
“Collectively, they represent emerging ideas and concepts that encapsulate the progressive nature of our industry along the complete supply chain from vineyards to the glass in Australia and overseas,” Mr Moate said.
“Expert, independent industry representatives will assess each entrant in the various categories and the Start-up sector in particular will highlight the entrepreneurial vision and energy that is bringing exciting new dimensions to the industry across 65 regions including about 6,250 grapegrowers, 2,470 wineries and the entire supply chain.”
Following are snapshots of entrants in the Start-up category.
Grapegrowing
Consilium Technology
Consilium Technology, in partnership with Wine Australia, DigitalGlobe and UniSA, has introduced Geospatial Artificial Intelligence for Agriculture, or GAIA – named after the Greek Goddess of Nature. GAIA delivers highly scaleable and cost-efficient grapegrowing analytics and insight through multispectral satellite imagery, and can map every vineyard and vine row in Australia. For the grower, it enables continuous crop health monitoring aimed at providing actionable insights to improve yield and quality. For the wine industry, it provides Australia-wide precision analytics for assessing supply and demand factors to support decision-making and investment initiatives. GAIA’s mission is to provide ubiquitous geospatial insight to every grower in every season.
Platfarm
Platfarm enables growers to use their own smart phones or tablets to guide work being carried our on their vineyards with greater precision to optimise the quality, quantity and profitability of their grapes. It enables users to import data such as aerial imaging or soil maps to show block variability, to draw zones of where work needs to be carried out and at what rate, and out in the block it tells users when to start or stop work or change rates.
Taglog
Taglog partnered with Grape Logistics (Group Logistics Pty Ltd) to develop a prototype electronic labour management system identifying actions to enhance productivity in premium grape production. The prototype work developed into a comprehensive, real time radio frequency identification and GPS system to address requirements in labour and vineyard management along with transport logistics. Through the partnership, the technology was trialled across 28 vineyard sites with excellent feedback and support across all sectors including growers, managers, contractors and workers, as well as wineries purchasing the grapes.
Winemaking
Rapid Phenotyping
Rapid Phenotyping is an emerging platform for instantly measuring chemicals in the entire winemaking cycle from nutrients in the soil, the uptake of nutrients to the vine and then sugar, tannin and acid levels of the fruit. By developing molecular ‘fingerprints’ from samples, Rapid Phenotyping is developing technology for application from crush to bottling to maintain correct balances and to monitor changes of chemical traits. With further development, the technology also has potential to track wine through the supply chain, as distinct from the barcode, to confirm factors such as variety and provenance.
Distribution and Logistics
eBev
eBev is an Australian wholesale beverage community that offers venues and suppliers a B2B digital end-to-end service including sourcing and ordering beverages, centralised portfolio storing and access, collated industry trade events, and communication channels. eBev empowers venues by presenting all possible options for purchase in their market and it supports distributors by lengthening their reach beyond resourced territories. eBev’s beverage marketplace is free for venues to use and offers more than 29,000 products from 330 suppliers in one easy-to-use and mobile responsive platform.
TBSx3
TBSx3 Pty Ltd is a block chain start-up enterprise in the supply chain and logistics sector. It aims to become the system of choice for the global supply chain by providing an effective global data verification and sharing layer enabling greater transparency, efficiency and visibility for the recording of all activities across the supply chain. It utilises a business model to monetise utility tokens that represent trade items and logistic units in supply chains. The value proposition of the TBSx3 block chain platform intersects with marketing, logistics, brand protection and inventory management.
Tourism
Twenty Five Doors
Creating and marketing unique cellar door tourism experiences, managing bookings, staffing schedules and a range of other issues can be daunting for many wineries. Twenty Five Doors solves these problems with technology solutions that make it easier and less expensive for wineries to create, market and deliver accessible and unique experiences at their cellar doors. It is not a directory with an advertising business model. Rather, Twenty Five Doors is a marketplace where wineries offer unique cellar door experiences and wine tourists can find and book these experiences. It also has a unique mapping feature that is free for tourists and wineries. Tourists can create personalised, self-guided itineraries in wine districts, literally bringing qualified tourists directly into the cellar door.
Wine Travel Bag
Wine Travel Bag is an affordable, lightweight and reusable carry bag designed to protect wine and luggage in transit. This practical item features custom-designed, ultra-absorbent material inside to safeguard precious contents. The material acts as an instant sponge in the unfortunate event of a leak or breakage. At just 105 grams, a Wine Travel Bag can be carried anywhere and be reused multiple times. It is an exciting and emerging asset to wineries and wine retailers designed to boost sales while fostering and strengthening customer loyalty.
Marketing and Communications
Trust in Taste
Trust in Taste has developed a new direct-to-consumer marketing channel allowing Australian wineries to provide a low-cost cellar door experience anywhere in the world. Initially focusing on China, the process allows wine samples to be taken from retail ready bottles and sent directly to consumers providing a virtual cellar door experience. Consumers are able to trust their own taste experience and buy the wine they enjoy. The wine samples guarantee 30 days of taste and quality equivalence to the source bottle. Consumers taste the wine while watching a video of the winemaker explaining the production process. They can purchase a bottle with one click, or express their opinion of the wine.
BrandPrint
BrandPrint was created out of need to simplify data management and enable business users to make more informed decisions. The designer and builder of BrandPrint, Swigg Consulting, has worked with many wine and liquor suppliers over the past decade delivering project-based analytics and insights. BrandPrint’s subscription-based self-service business intelligence solution delivers an affordable, off-the-shelf product with minimal customisation for each client. It has gained solid traction since the launch in February 2018 of the latest cloud version that is delivered using Microsoft Power BI.
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