This dissertation examines the supply chain of a New Zealand wine producer, from the
growing of the grapes to the transporting of the finished wine to its final destination at the
distributor’s warehouse in the United Kingdom. The motive to conduct such a case study is
the ongoing discussion about food miles.
The purpose of this study was to identify and estimate the inputs causing the total energy
use and CO₂ emissions for one bottle of fine wine. The methodology chosen was the
methodology from Wells dividing the inputs into direct, indirect and capital inputs and
extended by adding the important factor of transportation. For the transportation two different
scenarios were considered. Firstly, the change to bulk shipments and secondly, the change
to light glass bottles.
The current amount of energy used to produce and transport one bottle of wine is 13.7 MJ
and the respective CO₂ emissions associated with one bottle are 1,068.12 g. Over one third
of the energy and emissions relate to the transportation of wine. Changing the type of
transportation from bottling at source and shipping it to its destination to shipping the wine in
bulk and bottling at destination can save a significant amount of energy and reduces the
emissions considerably. Therefore this dissertation concludes that wine shipments should be
transported in bulk using flexitanks with bottling at destination into 300g light glass bottles to
obtain energy savings of 23.62% and reductions in emissions of 21.85% considering the life
cycle within the wine supply chain from vineyard to distributor.
Furthermore the dissertation discusses whether shipments should be conducted temperature
controlled or not and gives a brief outlook on how this would effect the energy use and CO₂
emissions from shipping the wine.[Show full abstract]
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