Chile emerges from ‘perfect storm’

(TheDrinksBusiness) - Carlos Cousiño, director of Cousiño Macul is optimistic that a strong 2013 harvest marks a positive turning point in Chile’s recent fortunes, despite the challenge posed by ongoing trade union strikes.

“It’s getting better after the perfect storm,” he told the drinks business. “The last two or three years have been horrible.” By contrast, Cousiño welcomed a 2013 harvest that was “extremely good both in quality and quantity”, with his own crop 15% bigger than in 2012.

While recent years have seen Chile’s wine exporters struggle with a strong currency, buoyed by the country’s copper industry, Cousiño reported: “the Chilean peso is getting back to where it should be against the dollar – it has weakened by 10% in the last month.”

However, in a country with almost full employment, he highlighted the current problem of strikes by unions as part of an ongoing wage dispute. Although Concha y Toro has been the most prominent producer affected during the last two months, Cousiño acknowledged: “It’s a problem we’re all going to face.”

While describing the maintenance of a weaker exchange rate as “critical” for the profitability required to meet wage demands, Cousiño revealed that his own company is seeking to reduce its labour costs with a US$2 million investment in technology.

In particular he pointed to the shift away from “very labour intensive” manual sorting tables, describing the replacement machinery as “faster and more efficient than human labour.”