06/02/06 Wine Distribution Center

New Cold Storage Distribution Facility. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. Getting wine from winery to consumer has a new friend. Columbia Colstor is readying a new facility to improve wine distribution. The new Columbia Valley Wine Warehouse is located in Grandview, Washington. Manager of the new facility, Kenne Aker explains. AKER: Our vision is a nice little distribution center for all the wines in the area. You know to where you consolidate all the wineries in one location and ship to other distribution centers and or the end use customers. Because right now, the wineries, what they do is they bottle, they hold their product and then they sell it to restaurants and food chains and blah blah blah. Well that has never been a real direct market for them, it's been a logistical nightmare and so what we've been trying to do is kinda market that a little bit and say you know what, let's put all that wine in one basket and ship it out, consolidate it and save everyone some money. The company is closing a storage facility in Prosser, Washington and refurbishing a former Snokist location. According to Aker this has been a lengthy process. AKER: This has been a process that so far, you know we're about year three into it. Because getting your state and federal license for a bonded warehouse is not a simple process. You know not anybody can just go out and say okay I want to be a bonded warehouse&now I am one. It's been about a three year process for us. If I could put in a crystal ball and see how this is going to unfold like 5 or 6 years from now it's be a pretty good size. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.