Exporting eco-friendly wine

Protecting the environment is an uphill battle at times, but Andrew Peace Wines is charging in with a rather effective method, or should I say war cry?

In a market saturated with options, your wine may find itself ageing a little too well. So how do you stand out from the pack? Andrew Peace, winemaker and exporter, believes the answer lies in innovation and environmental awareness. After all, green is in, so may be it’s time to turn to an old adage: “Once the last tree is cut and the last river poisoned, you will find you cannot eat your money.”

Yet Peace’s parents didn’t realise they were setting the foundations for a green business when they moved to a property in Piangil, Victoria in the early 80s—they just wanted to escape the rat race. But it was the motivation Peace, only a high school student at the time, needed to enrol in Roseworthy Agricultural College. 

Since then, with the passionate winemaker at the helm, the Peace family’s 100 acres of vines has increased to 750 acres, capable of crushing 25,000 tons of grapes. More than 90 percent of Andrew Peace Wines’ business is made up of exports and it's in the top 20 wine companies Australia-wide for both crushing grapes and export sales. “We’ve had a pretty good run,” says Peace of his family business, which employs the equivalent of about 65 full-time staff to keep up with the demands of exporting to 22 countries.   

The latest driving force behind their success is the ‘green factor’. “We’ve been leading the way with different packing techniques and I think that makes a big difference,” explains Peace, referring to the provision of wine in a Tetra Pak. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? But let’s face it; it’s an innovative approach to wine. The Tetra Pak is a glass alternative; almost as good as a screw cap and better than a conventional cork bottle, as far as oxygen ingress is concerned.

According to Peace, environmentally aware consumers love the concept. “It’s one hundred percent recyclable, and uses less energy than glass when being recycled,” he says. “Twenty-five truckloads of empty glass bottles are comparable to one truckload of empty Tetra Paks.”

The packs only weigh about 30g, while conventional bottles weigh between 700g and 1.2kg. So, with a transport saving of up to 40 percent, easing the environment’s burden comes with financial benefits. “It means that you’re a bit of a leader because everything is starting to go green,” he adds.

However an idea doesn’t mean much if you haven’t done the research to support it. Peace had the Tetra Paks road tested to see how they could be packed and transported and realised there was a downfall—they can’t be double-stacked and they need a pallet racking between layers.

Research has always been high on Peace’s list of priorities, long before the decision to use Tetra Paks. Andrew Peace Wines is now 13 years old, but Peace spent two years planning before launching, to ensure the business would get this far.

In fact, it was while reading up on business longevity and security that Peace realised export was a must. You see, security comes with multiple customers, he says, and initially Peace was only contracting to a couple of wineries. “So it all started for the security of the business,” he explains. “It’s really been the best move because we don’t do much contracting anymore. Most of the wine that we make gets crushed by us and we either sell it under a label that we control, or our own label. It’s all paramount to running a good business with long-term goals.”