Sustainable Supply Chains in the (CA) Wine Industry

While reading the case on Starbucks for class today, I was struck by how many similarities there are between the coffee and wine industry in terms of the challenges of creating a sustainable supply chain. (But then I thought well duh… why else would we be reading this case??)

Either way, the story of Starbucks Corp and their creation of the C.A.F.E. Practices to institutionalize and control sustainable sourcing of their coffee beans reminded me a lot of the efforts of several large wineries in CA who use similar tactics to ensure a sustainable supply of wine grapes. Jackson Family Wines is one of the first that comes to mind.

JFW is one of the largest wine companies in the US, and is the parent company of many well-known wine brands such as Kendall-Jackson, La Crema, Cambria, Siduri, and Byron. Over the past several years, JFW has developed a very robust in-house sourcing system to ensure that the grapes they are buying from growers and using to make their wines are certified sustainable.

Many of the goals of JFW’s sustainability program are similar to those of the C.A.F.E. practices, including ensuring economic sustainability, health and safety of the vineyard workers, negotiating mutually beneficial long term contracts with growers, and increasing transparency of the process. As of last year (when I was working at the CSWA), JFW also gave economic incentives to growers for their sustainably grown fruit.

However, rather than creating their own program to certify winegrowers as sustainable, JFW closely partners with the California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance. The CSWA takes care of the entire certification process for JFW’s growers- including educating them on sustainable practices, supplying them with the guidelines and paperwork, communicating updates to the guidelines, reviewing the certification application, and managing the independent third-party auditing system. In return, several JFW folks are incredibly active members of the CSWA board, and are instrumental in supporting the organization and the scaling of its programs across CA. During my time working at the CSWA, I was fortunate to work closely with Julien Gervreau, a member of the JFW sustainability team, who was incredibly passionate about and dedicated to the organization’s mission.  

Of course, the coffee industry faces several additional obstacles in their sourcing, including how far many of the coffee farms are from each other. JFW’s sustainability process certainly benefits from the fact that nearly all their wine is grown in California, by growers who are easy to reach by car, phone, or other technology.

All that being said, I think the fact that Starbucks has had such a widespread and successful reach with their C.A.F.E. practices is something the wine industry can learn from. As mentioned in my previous blogpost, sustainability in the wine industry is certainly picking up traction, but is by no means an industry standard at this point. Ensuring long term viability of the land, as well as improving the lives of vineyard workers through bolstered safety measures, increased education, better wages, and improved job trajectory, are actions that I believe are entirely necessary for the industry to move towards.  

For more information on JFW’s sustainable practices, you can refer to their comprehensive 2016 sustainability report. http://www.jacksonfamilywines.com/sites/default/files/2016JacksonFamilyResponsibilityReport.pdf