The devastating fires of the 2019-20 summer reminded the grape and wine industry of the need to be prepared for catastrophic events.

To assist, the South Australian Wine Industry Association (SAWIA) has created a new a wine industry focused bushfire resource to assist businesses before, during and after a bushfire event.

“Catastrophic events are all too common, and they can have enormous impacts and disruption to business operations and profitability in the short and long term. But there are actions that wine businesses can take to reduce the ongoing impact of the event,” said Brian Smedley, SAWIA chief executive.

The new SAWIA bushfire resource, ‘Preparing, responding and recovering from bushfires. A wine industry resource and workbook’, is a practical tool to assist wine industry businesses in planning and organising themselves.

The Resource is broken into three main elements consistent with State and Federal government approaches to emergency management: Prepare, Respond and Recover.

“This is a comprehensive approach to risk management that’s been used by Australian emergency management agencies for decades and can be adapted by businesses to save time and money when preparing for and responding to an incident,” Smedley said.

The resource guides businesses through worker and public safety, asset management and insurance, marketing and communications, human resources and operations.

An accompanying workbook contains a number of templates, checklists and other key documents relevant to the wine industry. For example, each wine business can create their own Bushfire Response Plan.

And while the resource and workbook focus on bushfire events, they can be applied to other emergencies with small modifications.

“Many wine businesses over the past five years have experienced three ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ events. This has taught us that there are many types of ‘once in a lifetime events’ that can impact us – we just don’t know what or when,” Smedley said.

“A wine business should have a plan to manage any business disruption. Establishing a plan with designated people in specific roles to ensure business continuity is key to an organisation being able to adapt and respond to a rapidly changing environment with speed and accuracy.”

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