Vine to Dine project findings: Sustainable value chain analysis - a case study of South Australian wine

The Government of South Australia’s Department of Primary Industries has just published the results of a piece of research that looks at the economic and environmental impacts of selling South Australian wine in the United Kingdom, a key market for Australian wine. The project takes a ‘value chain analysis’ approach for the ‘Oxford Landing’ wine brand, looking at 5 areas: Consumer value, Material flow, Emissions, Information flow and Relationships.

Tracing the flow from the point of cultivation through to delivery at a Tesco supermarket and then on to the home.

With respect to emissions, the study finds that farm related activities, bottling and packaging account for over 50% of total emissions – bottling and packaging is 15%. It finds transport to be a realatively small contributor. Regarding packaging and the scope for reducing impacts there the study notes:’the fact that consumers regard the appearance of the bottle and the information on the label as ‘value adding’ means that investment in more sustainable packaging formats should be made with caution and with due consideration of consumer preferences.’

The report also concludes that ‘Sustainability is a concept that remains poorly understood amongst UK supermarket shoppers. More sustainable wine production/packaging may be something that retail buyers are requesting of their suppliers, in an effort to support socially responsible strategic initiatives; but very few UK shoppers currently value sustainability as an attribute of the wine they purchase from supermarkets.’

You can download the report (plus an associated document looking specifically at consumer perceptions) here.