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- Digital Wine Ventures (DW8) business, WINEDEPOT, is preparing to launch a National Distribution Centre (NDC) in the Albury-Wodonga region
- The new facility will be located on the New South Wales and Victoria border, which is in the heart of significant wine-producing regions
- The NDC will give these wineries access to storage and will support next day deliveries to the east coast capitals
- To establish the NDC, DW8 has partnered with Borders Express who will also assist in developing a freight service for wineries
- The distribution centre is expected to launch in July
- Digital Wine is up 16.7 per cent on the market this morning and is trading for 0.7¢ per share
Digital Wine Ventures’ (DW8) WINEDEPOT business, is preparing to launch a National Distribution Centre (NDC) in the Albury-Wodonga region.
The NDC is strategically placed in the centre of a large number of major wine-producing regions, including the Alpine Valleys, Beechworth, Hilltops, King Valley, Swan Hill, and more.
It is located halfway between Sydney and Melbourne on one of the busiest freight routes. The NDC will give wineries access to storage and will support next day deliveries to the east coast capitals.
The NDC is expected to be launched by next month.
Digital Wine Venture CEO Dean Taylor says that establishing a major distribution centre in the Albury-Wodonga region is part of his original vision.
“Strategically it makes a lot of sense. Not only will it make WINEDEPOT’s end-to-end fulfilment solution more appealing to NSW and Victorian customers and reduce operating costs, but also provide us with an important resource to support our B2B Marketplace when it goes live later this year,” he explained.
The facility will have an extra 10,000 pallet spaces of climate-controlled storage, which can be increased to 25,000 pallets if and when needed.
“Having this additional storage capacity will help us onboard customers and products much more quickly, particularly distributors with large portfolios,” Dean added.
Borders Express partnership
The company has partnered with Borders Express to establish the NDC and develop a freight service for wineries.
Borders Express is a privately-owned Australian company that provides storage, transport and 3PL distribution services.
“What attracted us to Borders Express from the outset was not just the scale and reach of their operation, but also the fact they are a privately-owned and operated family business who understand what it takes to build and support a national business,” Dean told the market today.
“We were fortunate that the Luff family recognised the potential of our vision and were willing to invest in a partnership by providing us access to highly competitive prices which will allow us to build up the storage and logistics volumes required to support our NDC and depot network,” he added.
Digital Wine believes Borders Express have the right fleet, sites, technology, people and passion.
Borders Express Founder Max Luff believes there is enormous potential for WINEDEPOT’s platform.
“Dean’s vision for WINEDEPOT is genuinely exciting. The cost of moving a few pallets at a time around the country is expensive and highly erosive on most wineries’ margins,” he said.
“Working with him to help create a network that will make that much more affordable for the wine industry is something that we are proud to be part of,” he added.
Digital Wine is up 16.7 per cent and is trading for 0.7 cents per share at 11:42 am AEST.
