Chile transport crisis likely to ‘last all of 2022’, says wine producer

Two-week delays at the Chile/Argentina border caused by new Covid legislation, is unlikely to be quickly or easily resolved, Santa Rita Estates tells the drinks business.

Earlier this week the drinks business reported that more than 3,000 Argentine trucks have been stuck at the Chilean border in Mendoza as a result of slow Covid-19 testing, impacting the country’s imports/exports.

The issue arose when Chile introduced new entry protocols, which demanded that all drivers coming in and out of the country test negative for Coronavirus.

Truckers in Mendoza have been stranded at the border for as long as two weeks, without enough gasoline to power the refrigerators inside their trucks.

The Argentinean Federation of Business Entities for Cargo Transport (FADEEAC) asked Argentina’s foreign ministry to intervene and try to prevent further delays and minimize the economic losses, which according to FADEEAC estimates add up to $700 a day.

We spoke exclusively to wine producers on both sides of the border to see how the delays are impacting their business.

“In the immediate sense, we are having to move 20% of our orders from one month to the next,” Antonio Gauci, sales director Americas for Chilean producer Santa Rita Estates, told db.

Gauci doesn’t see the issue as being something that can be quickly or easily resolved, saying “I can see us still having these troubles for the full year of 2022.”

“Our main concerns are de-listings of our products in markets where the delays are generating out of stocks,” said Gauci.

“This is a very competitive industry with a lot of different alternatives in terms of brands and country of origin. Last year we suffered from some out of stocks in North America, where the vessel routes are critical, due to transport delays. Many of our distributors increased their volume orders in order to avoid future out of stocks.”

Across the border, Argentina’s Bodega Argento, owned by Grupo Avinea, is more hopeful of a swift return to business as usual.

“Although these delays were a problem and caused many inconveniences, they only lasted for a few days, so for us there should not be any significant delay for our customers in terms of delivery times,” said Santiago Ribisich, general manager of Grupo Avinea.

“We are not aware of why the Covid testing is taking so long. It is an issue that is with the relevant government authorities. Bodegas de Argentina, an organisation that brings together most of the country’s wineries, worked with provincial, national and foreign authorities in search of a solution and thanks to the good will of both governments, an understanding was agreed to move forward with a definitive solution.

He continued: “We hope the flow of traffic of trucks through the border crossing returns to normal quickly and that, as a result, inconveniences like this will not happen again.”

According to Claudia Soler from Wines of Chile, the current backlog is a drop in the ocean compared with wider “disruption in the logistics chain in terms of container availability, increase in maritime rates, congestion and delays in ports, shortage of carriers, among others.”