The VinPro Foundation and the South African Wine Industry Transformation Unit are learning to speak a new language: the language of BUSINESS.

Over the past few months, these two organisations have successfully assisted several wine industry suppliers, including cork, chemical protection and cellar hygiene companies, to meet and exceed their Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment scorecard targets.

The misperception that B-BBEE is complicated or that the donated funds are often misappropriated no longer has to concern partners of these two organisations. Through targeted and informed spending, together with monitoring and impact evaluation, there is enough to prove that B-BBEE really benefits society as a whole.

The B-BBEE scorecard elements that we assist with include:

  • Skills Development (SD)
  • Socio-Economic Development (SED)
  • Enterprise Development (ED) and
  • Supplier Development (SD).

Some examples of how we have spent donated funds in the recent past:

Skills Development (SD): The VinPro Foundation supported a black male Cape Winemakers Guild Protégé from Kylemore. Today, he is the viticulturist at Bartinney Wine Estate in Stellenbosch.

Socio-Economic Development (SED): Donations have been used to fund social workers who operate exclusively on Wieta-accredited wine farms. The social workers offer a quality service to the most vulnerable members of society. Through their work in training crèche facilitators, monitoring children and offering counselling to adults and childminders, their involvement ensures that any cases of child neglect or abuse is reported and followed up with authorities. Notable improvements have been seen with young people now realising that agricultural studies can open the door to a bright future!

Enterprise Development (ED): Funds donated have been used to support black-owned wine enterprises through national roadshows under the Treasure Chest Collective. This initiative assisted the brands and brand owners to showcase their varietals to the market, meet buyers in order to list their wines and make them available to wine lovers around the country.

Supplier Development (SD): Black-owned wine brand businesses have been assessed according to their business plans and needs and presented to interested companies as potential suppliers. This has led to some good partnerships and benefits for both commercial (meeting their B-BBEE scorecard target) and emerging businesses (gaining industry supplier customers, exposure and cash flow support).

Donations to the VinPro Foundation and the South African Wine Industry Transformation Unit are ploughed back into making the industry more robust and inclusive in a sustainable way. This is a language we can all understand.