2021: A Year of Growth and Innovation
Across Australia, 2021 continued to provide unanticipated challenges and hurdles throughout the year. As we prepare for another bustling vintage, we’re reflecting on what we achieved in 2021 and look towards the future of 2022. Whilst we are extremely proud of our achievements, our success wouldn’t have been possible without the support of our staff, customers, clients, contractors and suppliers. Read our yearly wrap up below.
In 2021 we completed another Vintage period crushing 10,000 tonnes of grapes and contributing 800 cubic meters of marc to our community compost program. We produced and packaged over 22 million bottles, over 11 million cans and 12,486 kegs. We set new records for the most production in a single week, as well as the most trucks of finished stock dispatched nation-wide to a single customer, in a single week.
2021 saw our working parents juggle homeschooling and their roles at Idyll. Our team stepped up to the challenge with a combination of working from home and on-site work to ensure all elements of our business were taken care of. Zoom meetings were a regular occurrence throughout our site as we continued to build and foster relationships with our customers throughout Melbourne and interstate. Lingering effects of COVID-19 continued to impact various aspects of our business, and we were even challenged with an earthquake too!
Our diversification and efficiency strategy was emphasised throughout 2021 with an abundance of new machinery incorporated to our site. Our first project saw the completion of our second canning line which operates at three times the speed of our original canning line. We installed a mezzanine deck above our existing bottling lines to make way for a cluster pak machine that wraps 4 and 6 packs of cider and rtd bottles together. This new machinery made Idyll more efficient whilst also reducing the amount of cardboard needed for our cider and rtd slabs. We thought two big projects weren’t enough so installed a brand new Keg line. So far we have kegged an array of cider as well as a vodka rtd product for our contract packing customers. We also installed a second cross-flow machine in our Cellar to enhance our winery efficiency and enable for our continued growth strategy.
As we continue to grow, so too does our staff force. We now employ over 142 employees across our operations, and this number will only grow once Vintage begins. This year we developed some new roles across our business including a Company Accountant (Lauren Gibbs), QA Officer (Nat Lutzko), Winery Administration Assistant (Phoebe Train) and a Food & Beverage Technician (Stephen Phipps).
Our loyal Geelong customers continued to support our local Cellar Door throughout the year. Our Arcadian and Idyll Victoria ranges continued to collect international awards for their superb quality and taste. Gold, Silver and Bronze medals were awarded in New York, San Francisco, Melbourne, Geelong and England. We are incredibly proud of such international recognition and appreciate all the team work that goes into making such results possible.
2022 is already looking to be another big year with more machinery and new product releases anticipated. We can’t wait to continue to grow and develop as a business as we continue to take on new challenges. Be sure to follow us on Instagram and Facebook to stay up to date with our latest updates.