Supply Chain Wine - Evaluation of sustainability criteria in the context of wine quality of global and regional supply chains

Abstract

The global wine market is highly competitive and has a structural overproduction. As a result, buyers (commercial and end customers) are becoming more demanding in terms of quality. As domestic demand is stagnating or declining in many producing countries, an increase in the volume traded globally has been visible for more than a decade. (OIV 2024) 

 As one of the largest import markets in the world, the German wine market is also highly competitive and is causing structural changes. The overall size of the wine and sparkling wine market in Germany has remained more or less the same over the last two decades; the total volume of wine produced in Germany has also remained more or less the same. What has changed, however, is the share of German wines in the overall market, which has fallen from 48% in 2000 to 39% in 2018, meaning that the share of imports has increased. At the same time, exports of German wine have also fallen. As a result, the production structures of grape and wine production have changed. There have also been shifts on the consumption side in the shares of wines sold via the respective sales channels.

Competition has therefore increased significantly in recent years, with the result that producers and importers are increasingly on the lookout for further opportunities to differentiate themselves. In this context, it is not surprising that “sustainability” is being considered more intensively as a means of differentiation.

The aim is to discuss sustainability criteria in the context of wine quality along the various stages of the value chain and to derive differentiation strategies for the relevant companies. The sustainability criteria as well as their potentials and trade-offs for the very heterogeneous wine market are shown and they are compared and supplemented with the sustainability criteria of various standards and certification systems, such as Global Gap, organic and in particular Fair'n Green. The analysis of the criteria is carried out with the help of the essence analysis, so that an evaluation of the sustainability criteria is carried out. This is used to evaluate the “wine” supply chains. The results are then used as a basis for optimizing the “wine” value chain in terms of sustainability.