Price Factors: Supply Chain Flashcards
What is a capital cost?
A capital cost is the money spent aquiring and maintaining long term assets (land, buildings and equipment)
What is an operational cost?
The day-to-day costs involved in producing and packaging wine
What is the primary cost in establishing a vineyard and what are the factors involved in its cost?
Land (buying or renting)
- Potential for high quality fruit/reputation of region
- Scarcity of land (high demand/limited by the GI)
What are 5 capital costs associated with making a vineyard operational?
- Surveying the land via Satellite/soil samples
- Site clearance
- Building access roads
- Buying and planting vines
- Buying materials for a trellising system
- Installing drainage channels/pipework
- Establishing an irrigation system
- Protection against weather hazards
- Protection from animals/pests
- Buying machinery/storage or renting machinery
- Operational costs for the 3 years before the vines yield suitable fruit
What are 3 ways that grape growers can help fund the capital costs of establishing a vineyard?
- Personal wealth
- Loan from a bank
- Investors
- Government subsidies
What considerations must you make before receiving a loan from a bank?
Interest and repayment plans must be factored into the long term business plan
What considerations must you make before receiving money from investors?
- They’ll want a share of profits
- They might want to be involved in managing the business
- You need to have connections with people who have the wealth to invest
What forms of government subsidies might exist for growers?
- Tax incentives
- Lump sum contributions
Dependent on growing area and local laws
What costs are associated with vineyard management?
- Labor
- Machinery and fuel
- Vineyard supplies
- Vineyard treatments
- Water
- Electricity
- Insurance and depreciation
What (5) factors go into labor cost?
- Topography/potential for mechanization
- Farming Methods
- Local labor costs vs. Machinery costs
- How much skilled labor is needed year round
- Local labor market
What is one way conventional farmers can reduce vineyard treatment costs?
Integrated Pest Managment (IPM)
- Reduces unnecessary treatment
- Requires spending on an up to date weather station or access to government weather station
What are two factors in water costs?
Local government- Paying for the right to extract water for irrigation.
Vintage variation- Will be more expensive in dry years, possibly making grape growing unprofitable.
What would electricity be used for in operating a vineyard?
Water pumps for irrigation
Bird scarers
Frost protection equipment
What are some examples of depreciation costs might you include in establishing a vineyard/winery
Machinery and trellising equipment
Press
What are some costs in establishing a winery?
- Land
- Winery design
- Storage and maturation vessels
- Tanks
- Cooling equipment
-Pipes/pumps - Bottling line
How might a winery that purchases grapes meet a lower price point for the finished product?
Blend with lesser known varietals
What might be more cost effective than purchasing water?
In water scarce areas, it might be more cost effective to invest in a water treatment plant so water can be reused
How might a winery lower electricity costs?
Generate their own (solar panels)
Why does maturation add cost to production?
- New oak is expensive
- Labor to monitor the maturation process
- Lack of cash flow for extended maturation (eg. Rioja Gran Reserva must be aged for 5 years prior to release)
What costs are involved in packaging?
- Label design (especially if it’s being imported to markets with different labelling requirements)
- Glass, closures, boxes, pallets
- Bottling line (estate, mobile, bottling somewhere else)
What are the most significant cost/bottle differences between high volume and ultra-premium producers?
- Labor
- Land (and real estate taxes)
- Depreciation of equipment
- Oak
- Cellar overhead (longer maturation)
Why would a producer ship wine with a specialized company?
More careful consideration towards spoilage/breakage from:
- Sunlight
- Temperature shifts
- Excessive vibrations