16 July 2019
South Australian researchers will be tackling the problem of flagging Australian wines sales to the US at a special workshop on Sunday July 21, as part of the 17th Australian Wine Industry Technical Conference (AWITC) in Adelaide this week.
Workshop covenors, UniSA’s Associate Professor Armando Corsi and Flinders University’s Professor Roberta Crouch say while Australian wine exports to the US decreased by about eight percent in value and 11 per cent in volume in 2018, the US still represents Australia’s second biggest wine export market.
“We believe two factors will be critical in turning this trend around,” Assoc Prof Corsi says.
“Understanding how to both build and maintain relationships with trade operators including importers, distributors and retailers, and understanding what trade operators want when choosing the brands they stock.”
Prof Crouch says these industry undertsandings are especially important to achieve sustainable growth.
“If we want to improve sales, particularly for higher priced, premium wines, we need to be really listening to the operators to become the best partners in their business success.”
The workshop, How to grow sales in the US wine market, will be held at the Adelaide Convention Centre from 4.30 pm to 7 pm. Presenters include experts from UniSA’s Ehrenberg-Bass Institute (Armando Corsi and Larry Lockshin), Flinders University (Roberta Crouch), and Wine Australia (Peter Bailey).
A special panel session featuring experts in the US wine trade – Daniel McKeever, Peter Granoff, and Scott Carslake – will highlight keys to success in the US market.
The latest US market insights from the results of two research projects commissioned by Wine Australia will be especially significant to local producers and sellers.
The projects - The Ties that bind: building strong importer and retailer relationships to drive premium wine export sales and Driving the strategic growth of Australian wines in the US export market will provide key insights into how to establish and maintain a relationship with operators in the US market and more on the product features the US wine trade (importers, distributors, retailers and restaurants) and consumers value the most when selecting a bottle of premium wine.
Tickets for the work are available here.
Contacts for interviews:Assoc Prof Armando Corsi: tel: 088302 0942 email: armando.corsi@unisa.edu.au or Prof Roberta Crouch tel: 08 8201 2046 email: roberta.crouch@flinders.edu.au
Media contact: Michèle Nardelli phone: +61 418 823 673 or +61 882960854 email: michele.nardelli@unisa.edu.au
