Australian Grape & Wine (AGW), and Wine Industry Suppliers Australia (WISA) are urging Australia’s winemakers and supply chain companies to plan and work together now to manage shipping disruptions.
Businesses are being urged to plan early and work collaboratively as the industry’s supply-chain struggles to manage major disruptions and cost increases in freight and shipping.
“Like every industry reliant on sea-freight, grape growers and winemakers are feeling the impacts of freight and shipping disruptions over recent months,” said Tony Battaglene, Chief Executive of Australian Grape & Wine.
“Costs are increasing dramatically across the board and it’s proving very difficult to access spots in containers. This will have an impact on our exports in the short-to-medium-term.”
The concerns extend beyond securing container space for exporters, with grape and wine businesses expected to face significant delays on many of the inputs they need ahead of Vintage 2022.
“It’s never been more important for grape growers and winemakers to be talking to their suppliers as early as possible ahead of the coming vintage,” said Shirley Fraser, Executive Officer of WISA.
“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”.
Battaglene added: “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 and all businesses along the supply chain are encouraged to attend.