A new research project is exploring the potential for value chain analysis to be used to better meet consumer demands and improve competitiveness and sustainability.
New research is helping shed light on what consumers’ value and how the wine industry can more efficiently compete in the global market.
The ‘Vine to Dine’ research project, an initiative from the 2008 residency of the Adelaide Thinker in Residence, Professor Andrew Fearne, used the Oxford Landing wine value chain from South Australia to UK’s Tesco supermarket chain as a case study to explore the potential for using sustainable value chain analysis as a tool for better aligning resource allocation with environmental management and what consumers’ value.
Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries Rory McEwen, said the research illustrated to the South Australian wine industry how it could work along the value chain to better meet consumer demands and improve competitiveness and sustainability.
“The study mapped the production and logistics associated with getting the wine to the consumer looking at how the product and information about the product moves along the value chain, the relationships along the value chain and what consumers’ value,” he said.
This was correlated with the emissions of each step which shows the attributes of wine UK consumers’ value and the environmental impacts of
those attributes.
Bottling, packaging and labelling together accounted for 15% of total emissions. However, consumers regard the appearance of the bottle and information on the label as ‘value adding’ so investment in more sustainable packaging should be made considering consumer preferences.
SA Food Centre’s Manager of Value Chains, Jack Langberg, said results of the ‘Vine to Dine’ project demonstrate the benefits of using Value Chain and LifeCycle analysis for other agrifood sectors.
“For example, it has been agreed to use this methodology in a project focussing on the national lamb industry, to demonstrate to the Primary Industry Ministers Council (PIMC) the benefits of using value chain thinking and taking a value chain approach to industry development.”
“The SA Food Centre Market Development team are also involved in projects that will adopt a similar methodology to ‘Vine to Dine’ in the finfish, prawn, almond and pork sectors.”
The recommendations from the ‘Vine to Dine’ research project and the overall Fearne residency will also be used to inform government policy and how the South Australian Government works with food and wine industries.
Professor Andrew Fearne has been working with South Australia’s food and wine industries with the aim of improving sustainable competitive advantage within the State’s food and wine value chains through better knowledge and application of value chain thinking, analysis and management.
Partners in the ‘Vine to Dine’ project included the Yalumba Wine Company, AMCOR Australasia, TARAC Technologies, University of South Australia, University of Adelaide, Department of Trade and Economic Development and PIRSA.
The full report is available at www.pir.sa.gov.au/wine/value_chains
For more details
Contact
Annabel Mugford
PIRSA Grape and Wine
p +61 8 8226 0185
e mugford.annabel@saugov.sa.gov.au