By James Wells in Dusseldorf
Warburn Estate commercial manager Craig Yardley has used the ProWein international wine show to help reconfigure his business as he seeks to double the proportion of exports.
Yardley told TheShout he is trying to balance domestic sales with export business by increasing the proportion of export sales over time from 20 per cent to 40 per cent by using events like ProWein to appoint European distributors.
“I have been visiting this show for three years. I am a complete convert for ProWein – it is a great show,” he said. “Each year it gets busier and busier with lots of opportunities. We will certainly get new accounts from this show – particularly in Denmark and The Netherlands.
“Since we are forecasting a crush of 40,000 tonnes in 2009, we are ideally positioned for exclusive label business. We are a fully integrated business with logistics and container packing facilities on site and we have the added benefit of doing business cheaper than other companies.
“One of our major advantages is that we have 95 per cent water allocation, which puts us in a good position in terms of security of fruit,” he said.