Wine Depot Buys Logistics Provider

Wine Depot has bought Parton Wine Distribution, one of the country’s leading specialist wine and beverage logistics providers.

Wine Depot CEO Dean Taylor described the acquisition as a significant value-add for customers, allowing the company to take its integrated trading, logistics and payment management technology platform to the next level.

“We are really excited to become the custodians of Parton Wine Distribution,” he says.

“Their long track record in the industry, 23,000 square metres of warehousing, stacked together with almost 100 experienced and dedicated staff, provides a significant boost to our operational capability.”

The acquisition of Parton’s assets augments Wine Depot’s directly controlled 10,000 pallet national distribution centre in Albury-Wodonga, 3,000 pallet depot in Adelaide and a network of third party warehousing and freight providers that it uses to service Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth.

Mr Taylor says that although the outsourced third party logistics solution was working well, as the business continued to scale it would become necessary to further develop its own capacity to maintain the high service levels it offered the industry, particularly during times of peak demand.

“Having our own dedicated fleet of delivery vans and drivers will ensure we provide an exceptional experience for suppliers using Wine Depot Logistics and trade buyers using Wine Depot Market, our recently launched direct-to-trade online marketplace,” he says.

“In addition, direct management of our own warehouses allows us to offer on-demand picking, late cut-off times and temperature controlled, cold chain and bonded storage to our customers right up and down the supply chain.”

Parton Wine Group founder Richard Raddon, whose long experience in wine logistics includes 21 years at Southcorp and a stint with Toll, will join Wine Depot’s senior executive team as general manager of the Logistics division, assisting in the post-merger integration of his business.

His son David, with 25 years of hands-on logistics and operational experience, will also join the Wine Depot team as national operations manager, and Parton’s 150-strong existing customer base will be transitioned across to the Wine Depot platform.