Jacobs Creek tries bulk shipping to offset high Australian dollar

The high Australian dollar is causing Jacob's Creek to bottle wine offshore rather than locally in Australia to offset the cost of the rising dollar. For the first time ever, they shipped an entire batch of the flagship 'Classic' label destined for British and Irish markets that would previously have been bottled at the Barossa factory. As well as the exchange rate putting a squeeze on margins the company says there have been calls from European customers to reduce the carbon footprint by bottling closer to market.

Jacob's Creek is Australia's largest wine brand and owned by French beverages group Pernod Ricard. Australian Vintage, owner of the McGuigan brand also announced it would undertake packaging and bottling in the UK and recent figures show nearly 50 per cent of Australian wine exports and shipped in bulk.