Int. Journal of Business Science and Applied Management, Volume 11, Issue 2, 2016

Sustainable wine supply chain and entrepreneurship. The

exploitation of by-products in a waste management process

George Malindretos

Harokopio University

70, El. Venizelou Str., Athens, PO 17671, Greece

Tel: ++30 2109549233

Email: gmal@hua.gr

Konstantinos Tsiboukas

Agricultural University of Athens

75, Iera Odos Str., Athens, PO 11855, Greece

Tel: ++30 2105294761

Email: tsiboukas@aua.gr

Sofia Argyropoulou-Konstantaki

Agricultural University of Athens

75, Iera Odos Str., Athens, PO 11855, Greece

Tel: ++30 2105294761

Email: sofiaargkon@hotmail.com

Abstract

The sustainability issue has been acknowledged as a universal contemporary challenge within an

entirely new, unprecedented and irreversible global economic, social, cultural and physical

contemporary environment. Critical role plays the interdisciplinary Supply Chain Management (SCM)

and its advance to sustainable SCM and more recently to green SCM.

The field of sustainability in the wine industry appears as a breeding ground for the development of

multidisciplinary collaborations, as well as for the application of innovative practices in the framework

of entrepreneurship, in both forward and reverse agrifood chains.

In such a context, this paper studies the exploitation of the opportunities derived from the wine

production and waste management, within the totally new business, economic, social and physical

environment. More specifically, it presents a start-up business plan conducted by Agricultural

University in collaboration with the Harokopio University of Athens, Greece; it regards a wine waste

management company in the island of Crete, Greece, highlighting the transformation of challenges to

opportunities for innovation to more efficient use of by-products and wastes. It is noticed that this

industry has shown historically exceptional innovative capability and flexibility, for climate privileged

quality products in East Mediterranean region.

The conclusions and recommendations drawn in this study, provide useful insights and directions for

future research that are expected to enrich the available knowhow in the wine industry which is

particularly suitable for research on sustainability and in any way, must proceed to commitment for

protecting the environment. The empirical case study in the island of Crete is expected to facilitate the

attempts to transform the crisis to continuing sustainability performance of wine industry under

contemporary world market conditions, along with potential broader managerial implications towards

environmental protection and strengthening the social consensus through further future research.

Keywords: Sustainability, Sustainable Supply Chain, Wine Supply chain, Pomace, Polyphenols

George Malindretos, Konstantinos Tsiboukas and Sofia Argyropoulou-Konstantaki

1 INTRODUCTION

The sustainability issue has been acknowledged as a universal contemporary “challenge” within

an entirely new, unprecedented and irreversible global situation. Serious problems arise when going to

the question how we can proceed in the transformation of the “sustainability challenge” to generic

“sustainable opportunities”. This is firstly a matter of “sustainable knowledge management” (SKM)

and diffusion, as the holistic Sustainable Supply Chain Management (SSCM) is founded on equal

cooperation, partnerships and customers’ satisfaction for value creation.

Though research in the sustainability issue has invited increasing work by many academics and

sustainability in the wine business has been fostered by growing interest of the wine industry itself and

the active role of institutions (in governance, consulting and funding), there are still some gaps

concerning wine supply chain and especially wine wastes management. As increasingly prominent

business and scientific area, wine supply chain operations to both forward and reverse supply chain

should be reconsidered in the light of sustainability, in holistic interactive methodology.

After having provided a brief description of sustainability issues with emphasis to the wine

industry, the intention is to shift the emphasis toward more practical aspects of the topic. Thus, it aims

at evaluating the possibilities of a start-up company that will exploit the wineries' waste for the

production of polyphainols used in food and pharmaceutical industries.

After presenting a start-up business plan, in the island of Crete (traditionally developed winery

area), this paper provides useful insights that can depict managerial implications and highlights the

main challenges for further research.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Sustainable Development and Environment protection

It is common to connect the sustainability issue with the unprecedented changes that occurred

throughout the post war period - indicatively mentioning particularly the 1970ies and 1980ies- with the

two oil crises (1973 and 1979), the peaceful collapse of the “central planning system” in late 1980ies,

the consequent globalization phenomenon, etc. These came in interchange though they are often

attributed to increasing awareness about the “sustainability issue”, in connection with a general

challenge of adjustment to a new economic, social, physical environment.

The abovementioned connection of the “sustainability” with the goal of adjustment to the new

economic, social, physical environment, has been interpreted as presence of a missing link, as has been

noticed in relation to the latest CCN program of the UN (Malindretos, 2016). In particular, the

connection of the sustainability goals, starts with the need for overcoming the vagueness of its concept.

The literature of the sustainability has connected its concept with the organizational change, which can

be defined in various ways (Dixon and Fallon, 1989; MacGillivray and Doane, 2001; Dempsey et al.,

2011; Castro and Charms, 2012; Giovannoni and Fabietty, 2014).

Whereas most people agree on the importance of “sustainable development”, its very nature and

meaning is rarely discussed and analysed in an explicit way. As a result, the actual implementation of

sustainability risks to be limited by the vagueness and ubiquity of its definition (Dixon and Fallon

1989). Also, while the concept of sustainability is broadly acknowledged as multi-dimensional, with its

various dimensions brought to light different discourses over time and have often been treated

separately (which has limited its actual implementation in real rhetoric). The literature review which

addresses to the notion about the relevant dimensions of the sustainability (or sustainable development)

is engaged with identifying key dimensions and intertwining the relations among them. In so doing the

challenges and opportunities brought out by an integrated approach towards sustainability are also

emphasized together with the role played by governance structures, business models, strategies and

management, measurement and reporting systems in implementing “integrated sustainability” within

organizations: in the prospect about sustainability can be a concise communication about how an

organization’s strategy, governance, performance and prospects of synergic creation of value over the

short, medium and long term (Giovannony and Fabietty, 2014 ).

The need to align governance systems to sustainability is also acknowledged at the company level

(Newmark Craig M., 2009). In particular, there has been reported presence of managerial misconduct

in certain corporations whose ways of doing business have been too profit-oriented and overly focused

on the financial aspects of organisational performance (see Abdel-khalik 2002; Benston and Hartgraves

2002). Consequently, it has been broadly acknowledged that creating value only for shareholders is not

enough (see, among others, Charreaux and Desbrie`res 2001; Coda 1988). Rather, value creation is an

integrated process that is rooted around a broad perspective of governance, encompassing the interest

of multiple stakeholders.

Int. Journal of Business Science and Applied Management / Business-and-Management.org

The knowledge of the supply chain encompasses a group of entities which have to share common

goals, linked through processes such as procurement or logistics, to thereby providing goods or

services, in response to the changes in economic, social and physical environment and climate change.

It refers to a supply chain interdisciplinary partnership to an integrated value creation network as

conditional to sustainability (Vlachos and Malindretos, 2012). It refers to a historical change occurred

during the 1970ies and 1980ies in the company management model; an associated new vision and

advance of knowledge and research towards interdisciplinary and interfirm collective action; the raising

opportunities of choices and trade-offs on cost/benefit criteria, by the innovation of the Logistics in the

company’s distribution functions and its extension throughout integrated supply chain of value creation

network, and its further advanced to SSCM, accounting the social factors for further enhancing the

sustainability performance, up to brainstorming re-engineering (Malindretos et al., 2002).

The association of sustainability with the micro-economics and the firm’s goal for profits and

efficiency maximization, incorporates innovative initiatives. Further is the planning and funding for

their implementation. Because, in broad perspective, all systems and organizations face the challenge

of implementing new practices at one time or another. Yet many of the innovations that are initially

successful fail to become part of the habits and routines of the host organizations and communities.

Recognizing the need to promote the use of best practices to achieve better outcomes, many

government agencies and community organizations devote significant resources to promoting research

on evidence-based practices (EBPs), and quality-improvement programs: priorities, best practices and

evidence-based interventions, in many systems and communities (Abrahamson, 2000; Ansoff, 1997;

Appleby et al., 2003; Buchanan et al, 2003). Identifying the critical factors to the success of initial

implementation efforts, cares policy makers and other stakeholders as increasingly concerned with the

long-term impact of their investment. However, the review of the dissemination and implementation

literature has shown near absence of studies focusing primarily on the sustainability of complex service

innovations (Greenhalgh et al., 2004).

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP, 2010), in a first study of scientific

assessment on the “Green Economy” and climate change impacts on consumption and production

found that the most critical impacts are related to ecosystem health, human health and resource

depletion; from a production perspective, it found that fossil-fuel combusting processes, agriculture and

fisheries have the most important impacts.

It has been noticed, however, that the literature review has shown limited implementation

performance and empirical research (Burgess et al., 2006). The performance issue has been seen to be

enhanced by increasing use of integrated “Supply Chain Process Management” (SCPM), incorporating

waste management processes.

In this respect, this paper addresses a very significant sustainability aspect in the wine supply

chain, presenting an empirical study of a start-up company that will operate in the wine waste

management business area.

2.2. Sustainability in the wine industry

Research in the sustainability issue has invited increasing work by many academics. In the wine

supply chain scientific filed, although there is some work done by researchers mainly concerning Life

Cycle Analysis and Assessment (LCA) (Ardente et al., 2006; Notarnicola et al., 2003, etc.), there are

not many references regarding wine supply chain and especially wine wastes management.

The field of sustainability in the wine industry appears as a breeding ground for the development

of academics and university collaborations (Santini and Cavicchi, 2011): the paper proposed by Lee

(2000) provides a general framework that can be used for describing the benefits arising from the

relationship between academics and industry. In general, it can be said that the industry, by cooperating

with research institutions, can be helped in solving technical problems, can have an easier access to

useful findings and can be facilitated in the innovation implementing process. There is no surprise

about the fact that the industry is supporting research in some countries: it is the case of the Wine and

Food Institute in California cofounded by Robert Mondavi Winery, the Anheuser-Busch Foundation

and Ronald and Diane Miller of Silverado Vineyards to conduct research on wine and food

(www.winespectator.com). Generally speaking, we can say, by observing some cases, such as the

Washington State Wine Industry, that University research has fostered the development of the wine

industry. Ohmart (2008), when observing the diffusion of sustainable practices among grape growers,

suggests that it depends on two factors: the rigorous science and its effective delivery to grape growers,

two issues that might explain any existing difference in terms of penetration and diffusion of

sustainable practices in viticulture. Also Guthey and Whiteman (2009) when analysing the history of

winemaking in California, state that funded university research has contributed to shape Californian

George Malindretos, Konstantinos Tsiboukas and Sofia Argyropoulou-Konstantaki

wine production thanks to the useful inputs provided for developing winemaking practices and

understanding human environment relationships.

As far as the differences among wineries concern, some scholars have proposed a model that

would help to classify wineries’ orientation in terms of sustainability; the model proposed by Casini et

al. (2010) provides four different possible profiles of wineries. The so called “devoted” wineries are

those that show a strong orientation towards sustainability that is emphasised by wineries when they

communicate with customers so that company’s image can be associated to a green orientation; those

companies must invest on customers and employees training and education programs in sustainability

and need to ensure an alignment between corporate vision and managerial vision. Another category of

wineries, the so called “unexploiters”, stands half the way between devoted and another category called

“laggards” that are those wineries who would never adopt sustainable practices: unexploiters usually

decide to adopt sustainable practices, but do not communicate and share with other people (clients, first

of all) their decision. Such a behaviour limits the benefits that might be gained through a sustainable

orientation. At the opposite of unexploiters stand opportunists: those are wineries that don’t have a

particular interest in sustainability, but tend to heavily communicate the few sustainable practices

introduced.

Internal as well as external drivers are critical towards the sustainability goal (Santini and

Cavicchi, 2011). Thus, internal drivers are the ethical motives inspiring top management and

entrepreneurs as well as strategic intentions based on the recognition of an advantage that might arise

from sustainability. External drivers, instead, take place in the firm’s external environment and concern

pressures coming from institutions, customers, communities, associations, environmental groups,

activists, regulators and competitors.

An orientation towards establishing networks among local players is a key factor of success. In

some specific contests, such as California, it emerged that agro-ecological partnership became the

leading vehicle for extending sustainable agricultural practices (Swezey and Broome, 2000; Dlott,

2004); it has also been recognised the proactive role that those partnerships had in spreading a green

orientation among wineries (Broome and Warner, 2008).

New Zealand is investing in environmental issues: “The New Zealand wine industry aims to be the

first in the world to be 100% sustainable. The Sustainable Winegrowers New Zealand (SWNZ)

program introduced in 1995 is a framework of industry standards set up to achieve this by vintage

2012.” (http://www.newzealand.com). Besides initiatives promoted by associations and institutions it

should be reminded the efforts paid by single companies for promoting practices that would reduce, if

adopted, gas emission and wastes. The case of the Wine Group in the US show that big companies

invest to environmental issues: the Wine Group has launched in 2008 a website

(www.betterwinesbetterworld.com) for documenting how Bag in Box can help in reducing emissions

and wastes (http://www.winebusiness.com).

The development of specific programs for sustainable winegrowing has fostered the adoption of

“ground to bottle” practices for producing grapes and wine (Broome and Warner, 2008). Institutions

and regulators have played a key role in enhancing wineries interest towards sustainability by funding

specific practices adoption and by educating through a sustainable orientation (Swinbank, 2009).

It has been demonstrated that competitors’ orientation towards sustainability can promote a

mechanism of adoption that affects other companies in the competitive environment: Murphy (2000)

describe the introduction of the flange-type bottle with a C-cap on the market by Mondavi, that has

been subsequently adopted by other wineries in the market who, conscious or unconscious, have

embraced the same principles that have inspired Mondavi before the product launch.

Consumers’ involvement in sustainability is also reshaping wineries’ interest toward this issue, as

it has been perfectly described by Bisson et al. (2002): “As consumers become more aware of the

vulnerability of our global environment, the demand for sound agricultural production practices is

increasing. In the future, the perception of the producer as a conscientious environmental steward will

be an important influence on the consumer’s purchasing decision. This is due in part to the fact that the

typical wine consumer is well educated and affluent.” The pressures coming from consumers have

created a market for wines that have been realized taking into account environmental issues, such as

organic or biodynamic wines (Forbes, et al. 2009): in particular, in some countries, as the UK, organic

wine moved from a niche to a mainstream position (Sharples, 2000).

3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This paper presents a study conducted by the collaboration of two Universities: the Agricultural

University of Athens (Postgraduate Program of Entrepreneurship and Consulting in the Agricultural

sector) and the Harokopio University of Athens, Greece. The basic goal is to foster “innovative

opportunities” and sustainability performance through “shared mobilization” of all available physical

Int. Journal of Business Science and Applied Management / Business-and-Management.org

and human /social resources in the wine and viniculture industry, within the broad challenge of an ever

changing business, economic, social and physical environment. More specifically, it concerns the

foundation of a start-up company in the island of Crete, Greece, that operates in the wine waste

management field.

Entrepreneurship differs from one geographic location to another due to variations in

environmental conditions and, in particular, economic, political/legal, and social conditions. Another

factor that impacts entrepreneurship is knowhow level in relation to the nature and attributes of

operations/products/services to be managed based on all time experience acquired. In this respect the

choice of location/area, namely the island of Crete and more specifically Kissamos province is not

accidental, as it is recognized as place of most famous quality of “marouva krasi” (meaning old

superior taste wine). The thematic of this paper underlies historical evidence that the wine has been

known around five thousand years of systematic cultivation in Crete (Velivasaki, 2016). It is moreover

noticeable in historical perspective, that the wine quality product in East Mediterranean region is

privileged in well recognized benchmarking from ancient era 5 thousand years BC. In addition, the

same industry has shown exceptional (if not without antecedent) innovative capability and

flexibility.

The necessary data and critical information were mainly collected from managers of wineries and

pharmaceutical/food companies, that represent suppliers and customers of the start-up company

respectively. From the (potential) suppliers point of view interviews were conducted with the managers

of the ten biggest wineries in Kissamos area. It is noticeable that most of the biggest wineries’

managers (seven out of ten), characterised their companies as “unexploiters” (medium-level sustainable

orientation) with the potential to become “devoted” companies by adopting significant sustainable

practices in the future. These seven wineries were selected as the potential suppliers of the start-up

company. On the opposite edge of the start-up company’s value chain, namely the potential customers,

the anticipated price of the start-up company by products was identified based on interviews conducted

with five pharmaceutical and four food companies. Secondary data provided the necessary technical

information for the design and development of the start-up company infrastructure, set up and

operational costs.

Holding in mind the lot of yet unsettled issues, presented as imperfections, myths, conflicts,

implies the critical usefulness of the SWOT method in the empirical research that focuses on

sustainability performance. SWOT alongside PESTEL analysis was used as a basis for the analysis of

business and environmental factors, for identifying competitive advantage by matching strengths to

opportunities and converting weaknesses or threats into strengths or opportunities.

Figure 1: Methodological approach of paper's study

George Malindretos, Konstantinos Tsiboukas and Sofia Argyropoulou-Konstantaki

The operational design and technical details of this project were based on the institutional research

knowhow and are briefly presented in this paper. Special attention was given to the financial analysis

of the study for determining whether project is profitable and its future prospects. Thus, profit & loss

statement summarized the revenues and expenses to be generated by the company over the entire

reporting period along with the use of certain financial performance indicators, commonly used to

business plans.

4 WINE WASTE MANAGEMENT START-UP COMPANY

4.1 General information about the start-up company

The company is going to be established in Kissamos area, in Chania prefecture (map 1), west

Crete. Its main activity will be the elaboration of wineries’ by-products and more specifically of

pomace for the production of polyphainols (fig.2).

Figure 2: Process of pomace elaboration for the production of polyphainols

In Greece 85,000 tn of pomace are produced annually from the wineries that elaborate 665.000 tn

of grapes. The greatest proportion of pomace is used for animals’ feed and a small part for the

production of raki (local drink). It is more broadly noticed that the wine and viniculture are identified

by deeper roots in bonds in Greece, as assimilated in the religion, culture, civilization, inspirations,

arts, philosophy, way of life, technological and economic progress. Historically, it goes further back

than the Homeric epics. In effect, it has been maintained in broader perspective, that wine has been “a

core element of the first European civilization”. Crete is an island that has been traditionally engaged

with vinicultural farming and wine production. Particularly, the history of wine in the island of Grete -

based on numerous historical sources- is dating back to the era of the Minoan Civilization (c.3000

years BC). It was intermixed with the Olymbian Gods -Cronos, Zeus, battle between the Olympians

and the Titans- the God Dionyssus, the second of the Olymbian Gods was the God of the grape harvest,

he born in the “Ideon Andron” of the island of Crete, and became symbol of wine taste quality and

further economic and political power.

The privileged vineyards’ in the history of wine in Crete and broader in Greece and the Eastern

Mediterranean may not be irrelevant to the survival of this industry alongside the half of the 20th

millennium by Othoman occupation, in view of that the “Koranion” prohibits strictly the wine use.

More specifically, as the vineyard farmers (mostly SMEs) achieved to survive through innovative

transformation and commercial exploitation of created by-products of wine (e.g. tsipouro, raki, oyzaki,

Int. Journal of Business Science and Applied Management / Business-and-Management.org

etc.) and to promote them secretly in the market place, within extraordinary difficulties of that time. It

has also to be added that Greek wines are often distinguished in foreign exhibitions, gaining prizes and

distinctions, and promising wine exports promotions, though they face various miss barriers

administrative procedures, introversion, etc. (Papalexiou, 2009; Artopoulos etal., 2010), besides recent

increase in VAT rate to 24% (June 2016).

According to Hellenic Statistical Services data (2010) vinicultural areas has doubled from 1999 to

2009 (from 100,000sq meters to more than 200,000 sq meters correspondingly), with Heraclion

prefecture representing the highest proportion between the four prefectures of Crete (Map1).

The management team will have the responsibility of the production, research and development,

sales and promotion, while logistics and financial issues will be outsourced to local partners.

In the past few years, interest in the polyphainols has risen considerably, particularly the ones that

derive from red and white grape varieties (Kammerer et. Al, 2004). Many polyphenolic extracts, for

example from grape skin and grape seeds are sold as ingredients in functional foods, dietary

supplements and cosmetics without any legal health claims. Many herbal teas contain soluble

polyphenols, and their efficacy is often attributed to astringent substances (Haslam et. al, 1989).

Map 1: Proportion of vinicultural farms in Cretan prefectures

Therefore, future company’s suppliers in this case study will be 7 wineries from Chania prefecture, while potential

customers will be enterprises from the food and cosmetics industry, as well as pharmacies.

4.2 Market research and SWOT analysis

Table 1 reveal, among others, the challenges from such an initiative. Major challenge relies on the

acknowledged value of the final product to people’s health, together with the increasing awareness for

environmental issues in the ever changing marketplace.

Figure 3: SWOT analysis

George Malindretos, Konstantinos Tsiboukas and Sofia Argyropoulou-Konstantaki

4.3 Financial evaluation

The main cost factors (infrastructure and operational costs) are outlined in Tables 1 and 2.

Table 1: Cost of infrastructure

Cost of infrastructure and start-up

(€)

Site 7000 sq. meters *

103,190

Site configuration **

10,168

Building 1000 sq. meters ***

244,555

Equipment

1,300,948

Start-up cost

1,000

Unexpected costs

(15% of total infrastructure)

248,980

Total

1,908,840

* value of 1000 sq. meters: 14,741 €

** value of site configuration per 1,000 sq. meters: 1,453 €

*** construction cost of buildings per 100m2: 24,455

Table 2: Fixed and variable costs

Fixed Costs

(€)

Services and consumables

(WWW site, insurance, consumables, certification, etc.)

5,430

Administration cost

127,789

Total

133,219

Variable costs (€)

Raw materials

2,500,000kg*0.015€/kg

262,500

Cost of picking raw materials

2,500,000kg*0.008€/kg

140,000

Labour (21 employees)

5€/h /60 days

50,400

Maintenance

1% of equipment value

13,001

Dissolver cost

150,000kg*0.1€/kg

105,000

Water

12,000m

/winery*0.3/kg

25,200

Electricity

2,280,482kwh/winery*0.041€/kwh

654,602

total 1,250,703

The above tables result to the total annual operational costs as follows:

Table 3: Total operational costs

Total operational costs (€)

Fixed

133,219

Variable

1,250,703

Unexpected costs (5% of operational costs)

69,196

Equipment depreciation (10% of equipment cost)

130,095

TOTAL OPERATIONAL COSTS

1,583,313

Potential revenues

Taking into account that the overall output of each winery (“supplies” of the start-up company) is

2,500 tn of pomace annually, the total available volume of pomace from the 7 wineries will be 17,500

tn.

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The elaboration of the pomace in the company’s production line will come up with 656.25 tn of

polyphainols. According to current market information sources the price is about 3€ per kg, so

therefore the total forecasted income is 1,968,750 € (figure 4).

Figure 4: Forecasted revenues derived from the 7 wineries supplies

Provided that after the third and fourth years of operations the price will increase about 0,1€ /kg

and that the company’s throughput will remain stable, company’s income within 5 years after its

establishment will be over 2 million €.

Table 4: Five years revenues’ estimation

5 years Revenues

Year

Output (tn)

656.25

Price (€/kg)

3.10

3.20

Total revenues (€)

1,968,750

2,034,375

2,100,000

In retrospect, we come up with the overall financial results, presented in table 5.

Table 5: Financial results

Financial

Results (€)

year

Revenues

1,968,750

2,034,375

2,100,000

Operational

costs

1,453,118

Gross Profit

515,632

581,257

646,882

Depreciation

130,095

Profit before

taxes

385,537

451,162

516,787

taxes 26%

100,240

117,302

134,365

Net profit

285,297

333,860

382,422

In addition, major financial indexes suggest that investment is financially sustainable, as derived

from table 6.

George Malindretos, Konstantinos Tsiboukas and Sofia Argyropoulou-Konstantaki

Table 6: Financial Indexes

Index

Result

ROI

12.97%

NPV

331,891

IRR

23%

5 MAIN REMARKS AND CONCLUSIONS

Naturally, entrepreneurship is fostered by entrepreneurial behavior, or behavior that fosters growth

through innovative ideas, products, services, markets, and technologies (Stevenson & Jarillo, 1990).

Entrepreneurial activity is more likely to thrive when appropriate infrastructure is in place to enhance

competition and problem-solving activities between a country's entrepreneurs (Busenitz et al, 2000). In

addition, knowhow and experience facilitate innovation and effective exploitation of all available

resources.

According to the literature, a tight relationship between academics and industry can provide

significant benefits to the wine industry and improve its overall orientation towards sustainability.

Moreover, it can promote entrepreneurship through supporting innovative initiatives, like the wine

waste management case study presented in this paper. This empirical study has been carried out in the

prefecture of Kissamos in the island of Crete, characterized by warm East Mediterranean climate and,

in addition, for the famous best quality tasteful wine products.

This paper’s study is a collaborative outcome of the industry (wineries, food and pharmaceutical

companies) with two institutions, specialized in agricultural sector (Agricultural University of Athens)

and sustainable supply chains (Harokopio University of Athens), aiming at investigating the innovative

challenges derived from wine by-products and wastes management. This is in line with the emergence

of the New Management Model “revolution”, has underlined the importance of four partnerships (4Ps)

[permanent, public, private partnership] and four collective value creation conditions (4Ss) [system-

structure-strategy-synergies] (Porter and Keamer, 2011). It is noticeable though that research doesn’t

show to keep the path of such diffusion and it is much more intensive in some countries rather than

others, although sustainability issues are affecting the wine industry all over the world.

The development of synergic schemes between would contribute in identifying, evaluating and

applying sustainable solutions to both forward and reverse wine supply chain. For instance, in the

island of Crete an agricultural cluster can be established, encompassing all stakeholders, such as local

Universities, grape farmers, wineries, retailers as well as food and pharmaceutical companies. In this

direction, “devoted” and “unexploiters” are the categories of wineries (Casini et al., 2010) that can

show the way towards sustainability. In any way, all managers, must realise, including these that are

not inspired by ethical issues, the important advantages of such an orientation in terms of marketing

benefits, corporate image positive feedbacks or cost savings (Isaak, 2002).

The wine industry is particularly suitable for research on the sustainability issue. The positive

financial results presented in the previous paragraph confirm the significant challenges founded on the

exploitation of wine waste, in the framework of closed loop supply chains, contributing to “two-tear”

genuine holistic SC in the advance of Supply Chain Management to Green Supply Chain Management,

which have attracted attention of both academia and practitioners in recent years (Meade et al., 2008;

Guide and Wassenhof, 2008;GuideAkçalı and Cetinkaya, 2011; Govindan et al., 2015). At any event,

strengthening the integrated supply chain is seen as key to unlocking a sustainable future (Carbon Trust

and BSR, 2017), as the literature review has shown, that there has been so far not sufficient

implementation performance (Burgess et al., 2006). The persisting performance issue of the

sustainability is also confirming non-sufficient commitment to past calls for integrated “Supply Chain

Process Management” (SCPM) (Becker, 1997), and dynamic, feed-back R&D sharing process, driving

to BPR (Hammer & Champy, 1993; Malindretos et al., 2002).

The solid knowledge driven re-thinking is very helpful, especially for performing use of missed

wastes in the wine supply chain, along with stepping up processing redirection, for enhancing the

company sustainability performance. Besides, energy and resources, covering the consumption of

energy and resources in the wine supply chain and the wine supply chain’s conduct to reduce the

consumption of energy and resources, is one of the critical sustainability aspects that should me

effectively managed (Abbing, 2010). Thus, the findings of the above mentioned case study reveal the

great opportunities derived from the application of sustainable practices in the reverse wine supply

chain, in the framework of effective Resources Based Management (RBM).

Int. Journal of Business Science and Applied Management / Business-and-Management.org

It has greater applicability globally, providing some key cost elements and the evaluation results

from the operation of a company that manages wineries by-products. In addition, , this paper provides

some useful insights that could be helpful for future research in the field of wine by-products

management. An analytical business plan is necessary to explore the details of operating such a

company, including Logistics and the flows of raw materials to the production line and its output to the

customers. Moreover, in view of that sustainability goal encompasses the social pillar, apart from the

financial and environmental ones, the positive impact of such initiatives in the local society must be

also taken into account, since new job opportunities arise, both directly (‘in-house’ operations) and

indirectly (outsourced activities from partners, like Logistics providers).

Universities and local authorities must promote the diffusion of knowledge and sustainability

awareness to all wine value chain partners. Research has a social responsibility in the development of a

sustainable orientation in the wine business.

The conclusions and recommendations drawn in the present study are expected to enlighten the

opportunities in wine reverse supply chain and the exploitation of all available knowhow towards wine

industry sustainable development.

Due to the social implications that sustainability as a research issue has, researchers who are

working in this field have social responsibility too; through their work, they can foster the adoption of

sustainable practices at different levels of the wine industry, contributing indirectly to the growth of the

overall welfare of people living in a certain area.

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