Weather Clogs Northwest Shipments

 
Residents in Spokane, Wash., already almost snowbound, braced for another 10 inches of snow on the night of Dec. 22, but carriers were still making deliveries and wine would arrive for Christmas all over the Northwest.
PHOTO: Kristin Miller
 
Salem, Ore. -- With a foot of snow on the ground across much of the Pacific Northwest and the region's airports backed up, getting wines out of the region in time for Christmas has been a challenge. Despite being short-staffed much of last week, Oregon Wine Services in McMinnville, Ore., managed to meet the Dec. 15 deadline for ground shipments and the Dec. 22 deadline Monday for two-day shipments.

"We had some pretty big days and we were able to still get everything out," said Tim Moore, director of operations for OWS. Road conditions on Dec. 22 were particularly challenging. Despite managing the hour-long commute between Portland and McMinnville in his four-wheel drive last week, Moore didn't attempt the drive on Dec. 22. He wasn't alone; just four staff made it in to ensure that shipments were ready for pickup by FedEx and UPS drivers. "We wanted to make sure, because we knew it was the last shipping day," he said.

The FedEx driver didn't make it, however, so staff took shipments to the courier's Lake Oswego facility on the outskirts of Portland themselves, where FedEx was scheduled to get them to the airport. "We're assuming that those packages will be leaving on time," Moore said.

A spokesman for FedEx told Wines & Vines that air services should face fewer delays than ground services, which were being cut back as conditions warranted.

OWS did postpone a shipment bound for California by truck on Dec. 22 because of the weather. The cut-off for departure would be early Tuesday, to ensure it reached California before wineries shut down for the year-end holidays.

Meanwhile, at Northwest Distribution and Storage Inc. further south in Salem, Ore., co-owner Gary Parker said shipments to California hadn't been delayed despite poor road conditions. Northwest's consumer-direct shipping division, Wineco LLC, had also avoided delays. FedEx and UPS vehicles had been able to pick-up and depart without trouble.

Parker and Moore each said the past year had been good, business-wise, and that the consumer-direct fulfillment business was up over previous years, despite the worsening economy. Northwest saw case volumes up 30% over previous years, hitting a total of 4.2 million cases through its warehousing, logistics and fulfillment divisions. The company serves some 250 distributors throughout North America.

Shipments to consumers may prove to have softened slightly this holiday season, with many wineries resorting to incentives such as free shipping to attract sales, but Moore expected overall business at OWS would end the year up 5% over 2007. By comparison, though, its business in 2007 was up 23% over 2006.

"So it's a lot less than it was," Moore said. "But it's still an increase, it's still looking good, and it seems to me that the (consumer-direct) channel is probably going to be one of the better channels for the wineries in the area."

The increase, and prospects for fulfillment services in the future, means that an expansion OWS undertook earlier this year should pay off. Total volumes should tally about 350,000 cases for 2008, up 100,000 cases from last year. Moore expected volumes to rise a further 100,000 in 2009, as OWS increases its focus on fulfillment services (see Wines & Vines article). "We're feeling we're going to have a great year," Moore said.