In December 2020, the Australian Government announced funding to support various sectors to expand and diversify their exports under its Agri-business Expansion Initiative (ABIE). Under the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment’s Agricultural Trade and Market Access (AMTAC) grants program, Australian Grape & Wine has secured funds to support grape and wine businesses impacted by the disruption of exports to the China market.
The ATMAC Grant is supporting our brands in the markets of Korea and Japan and we are looking to shortly appoint an additional Country Manager to further help the interface with consumers. Wine Australia will manage this program to continue the work we have initiated with them in Korea and Japan, with announcements on the Country Managers in both these markets imminent!
Australian Grape & Wine brought out a delegation from India for the Australian Wine Industry Technical Conference (AWITC) to start building relationships to prepare the ground for the development of the Indian market. This relationship is starting to pay off with the opening of a dialogue on how to improve access to the Indian market through enhanced certification process and acceptance of Australian testing.
In addition to this, we are working on a number of issues relating to maximum residue levels in wine in Canada, India and other markets. There are a number of significant domestic regulatory issues that have the potential to impact Australian wineries. These include a number of consultations by Food Standards Australia-New Zealand on Energy labelling on alcoholic beverages, Carbohydrate and sugar claims on alcoholic beverages and Added Sugars Labelling.
We are also looking at issue around plain English allergen labelling and its implications for stock in trade and of course the administrative and financial implications of proposals from a number of states to include wine bottles in container deposit schemes. These are all significant issues that have the potential to impact all business models.
