Distilleries & winegrowers: make the most of your dormant material stocks by selling unused bottles, corks or neutral cases!

We are in a situation where there is both an upturn in activity and a grabbing of materials by priority markets. In concrete terms, this means that China and the US are helping themselves first.

Similarly, there have been supply tensions for several years in wines and spirits, particularly in the production of extra white glass bottles, with French sites producing just-in-time.

So everyone tries to develop strategies to limit the impact of longer delivery times for bottles, corks or cases. This is not easy without a dashboard to monitor the availability of the elements that make up your product.

For on-shelf bottles, one solution is to select a 'similar' model available from another glassmaker. This is done while waiting for the usual reference to become available again. This still requires adjustments in terms of decoration, label and case...and therefore additional costs.

For bottles whose design is your own, there too the limited quantities of furnaces available lead to supply tensions and oblige you to design new moulds at another glassmaker. This takes time, especially if customers have priority on the production site...

In both cases, Chinese glassmakers are becoming increasingly present with competitive solutions to the historical French and Italian suppliers.

As for the increase in the cost of materials and transport, it is becoming urgent to optimise the various elements making up the spirits: bottle references, corks, label shapes, tools, cases, etc.

However, if restyling a range of spirits or wine is generally necessary every 5 years, with the result that materials remain in stock in the form of pallet bottoms, these dormant stocks are likely to increase if, in addition, new references have to be integrated to ensure continuity of production!

Hence the idea of disposing of stocks of materials that will no longer be used, before they deteriorate...

How many winegrowers and distilleries have pallet bottoms in storage waiting to be used one day or, more likely, to be thrown away? So why not let those who don't need to buy large volumes and wish to reconstitute stocks or help out a distillery looking for a specific model that is no longer available from its usual supplier?

Because in the absence of a real tool that allows an announcement to be disseminated by targeting potential clients (start-ups, winegrowers, distilleries), people talk briefly about it to people they know and then abandon the batches concerned, which become dormant stocks in the cellars. 

There are many advantages to putting materials back into circulation in good condition, especially if we take advantage of the situation to set up a sustainable supply chain based on a circular economy vision:

1/ Ecological : fight against waste by not throwing away elements that can still be used, even if the glass and cardboard are recycled. Bottles tend to warp over time depending on storage conditions (release of soda, contamination...) and corks have a shelf life to be respected (6 months officially according to the manufacturers for cork bodies, more for synthetics). Concerning the resale of boxes, they are of course neutral or decorated boxes but without your brand.

Hence the interest in making a precise inventory of what you no longer use, while diagnosing its condition before reselling it. And for buyers, to ensure the relevance of their acquisition (adequacy of the bottle + cork)

2/ Practical: free up space by avoiding indefinite storage of materials in good condition that you will no longer use.

3/ Financial : turn your dormant stocks into cash.

4/ Social : produce local links by offering new supply opportunities. Especially when official suppliers cannot respond favourably to your potential customers in terms of delivery times or volumes.

But how do you value your dormant stocks?

1/ I have just created a page for the sale and research of materials on the My Spirit Factory website which will be online next week. As such, I can receive your inventories and photos of the materials concerned as well as a description of their condition.

I write your ads and put you in touch with your customers, for a 15% commission on sales. This ad page is currently an MVP (minimum viable product) that meets immediate needs

2/ I'm also working on a project for an automatic ad site (to be posted by oneself) with many features (geolocation, etc...). It will be launched this summer if the experiment is conclusive.

In the meantime, contact me if you are interested in putting your material stocks in good condition up for sale and take the opportunity to establish your inventory!

JEROME SAVOYE