Accolade to invest in Australian bottling plant

Australian producer Accolade has announced plans to invest AU$40 million in a new bottling plant and warehouse in the south of the country.

Construction is set to start on the new site late this year or early 2017 at one of the company’s existing wineries in Berri, in South Australia’s Riverland region. The project is expected to take around 18 months to complete.

The building of the new bottling plant will allow Accolade to withdraw from a co-bottling agreement it currently has with Treasury Wine Estates. A spokesman has been reported in the Australian media as saying that agreement will come to an end in the next three years.

The two companies agreed the arrangement in 2012 as both sought to cut costs in their supply chains. As well as sharing TWE’s Wolf Blass facility in Barossa Valley, TWE packages wines at Accolade’s own facility in the UK near Bristol, Accolade Park.

It does not appear this latest news affects the arrangement in the UK.

With the 2012 agreement, Accolade – which makes Hardys and Banrock Station – controversially shutdown its old plant in South Australia at Reynella.

The new facility will be able to bottle around eight million cases a year and its Berri winery is already one of the biggest in Australia, crushing 200,000 tonnes annually and with a storage capacity of 260m litres.

As reported by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the site will employ some 40 people when it opens and local politicians have described the multi-million dollar investment as a, “shot in the arm” for the region.

Accolade has been contacted for comment.