It started naturally when the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic in March 2020. Billions of people were forced to stay at home, so they quickly switched from paying for services to buying equipment – home gym equipment, electronics. , and equipment. almost.
Shipping companies expected that the global economy would suffer from a slowdown, so they stopped producing containers. Instead, these companies received a massive spike in demand, causing a global shipping crisis that has yet to be resolved. Add to that a chronic shortage of heavy truck drivers, workers regularly forced into isolation amid “pandemics,” port delays, a blockage in the Suez Canal and problems caused by Brexit, and you have a perfect storm of problems for Europe’s largest wine bottler.
The park is based in Bristol in the west of England. It is a subsidiary of Accolade Wines, the Australian company that produces Hardys and Echo Falls, but also imports wine in bulk from suppliers such as Treasury Wine Estates and Henkell Freixenet. The team bottle the wine and send it to retailers and bars across the UK. It also transports about 6 million cases annually to the European Union. It is preparing for the Christmas trading period, the busiest period of the year, while continuing to battle a variety of disruptions to the global supply chain.
Managing Director Richard Lloyd admits this is the most challenging period he has ever experienced. However, The Park just had its strongest year of growth. It now accounts for one in four bottles of wine consumed in the UK, and its European export business is thriving, bottling wines, spirits, non-alcoholic drinks and hard seltzer for eight other companies.
The Park has bottled 250 million bottles of wine over the past 12 months, and is currently bottling around 1 million bottles and 150,000 cases of wine daily.
“It has been a challenging year, but one that has enabled businesses with the right fundamentals to thrive and grow,” says Lloyd.
The company's size gives it an advantage in the current climate, according to Lloyd, which has allowed it to emerge relatively unscathed. “We now have a critical mass of volume, with the Accolade and other brands, so we can ensure that when there are shipping challenges, we are at the front of the queue,” he says. “Our supply chain model can help other businesses too, so we have become a consolidation center for the UK wine industry.”
Despite strong growth, the shipping crisis has caused problems for the park. “You have this huge demand, and right now everything is out of the ordinary,” Lloyd says. “Shipping is about moving a container full of something, but then it's about moving the empty container back to the right part of the world. Global shipping lines have just lost their balance with where the containers should be, and there aren't enough containers right now. Global shipping will cause us problems for another three to six months.
