COVER STORY
Leadership During Crisis Wine Industry Alumni Provide PERspectiveS on Challenging Year BY LIZA TEIXEIRA ROBERTSON
Jeff Bitter (32) President Allied Grape Growers Wine Grape Grower Madera
How has COVID-19 affected your organization? Shutdowns caused an overnight shift in how and where consumers accessed wine. While initial 2020 wine shipment data points toward no real change in the amount of wine people are drinking, the shift is actually in dollar value. Much more wine is being purchased for “off-premise” consumption, which is generally much lower priced than wines purchased for consumption on-premise. What have you done to adapt your organization? We have changed our marketing emphasis to respond to the rapidly changing demands. Part of that is positioning and strategy with regard to grape supply, and part of that is education of our growers and the industry with regard to market dynamics. If we were to have had “all our eggs in one basket,” the effects of the government response to the pandemic could have been devastating on us. How did smoke-exposed grapes resulting from the 2020 wildfires impact your business? Allied Grape Growers missed out on millions of dollars in potential grape sales revenue as a result of rejections and refusals by grape buyers. While some of our growers may be eligible for insurance and/or disaster assistance, our company does not receive any portion of such benefits. Overall revenues will be down for the year due to these situations, and our response will be to perform budget cuts to address the unanticipated revenue reduction.
8 HORIZONS MAGAZINE WINTER 2021
What did you do to respond to these industry challenges? Short term, we increased our communications and contract negotiations to work through the issues with growers and grape buyers. Many wineries are struggling to maintain sales and profitability. Partnering with them with regard to pricing and terms, to help see them through, has been of paramount importance. Longer term, we initiated efforts to address smoke exposure issues within the industry. Allied Grape Growers was very successful in taking advantage of market opportunities to help offset losses. How do you use what you learned in Ag Leadership? Change is inevitable; it’s important to always be ready for it and even embrace it. Diplomacy is a major quality that Ag Leadership helped me to develop personally. Confrontation arises much easier during challenging times; diplomacy is essential to defuse confrontation. What advice do you have for fellow alumni who find themselves in leadership roles during times of crisis? Take things one day at a time. Don’t get overwhelmed by the totality of the situation; address problems and process solutions one at a time.
Jim Stollberg (35) Maverick and Hampton Farming Companies Santa Maria
How has COVID-19 affected your business? Protecting our employees is always our No. 1 priority, but it took on an additional focus this year. Not only the physical protocols we have trained for and implemented, but staying up-to-date on the ever-changing regulations.
