Insights from the Frontline of Australian Wine’s Complex Supply Chain

Based in South Australia’s iconic Barossa Valley, Flora Samonte of Hill-Smith Family Estates (HSFE) knows firsthand the passion, dedication and patience it takes to thrive in the dynamic and fickle business of wine.

With hundreds of little-known brands, huge shifts in yield year-to-year and ever-shifting global demand, the wine industry boasts a supply chain that is highly complex and has a number of unique challenges. But it’s that complexity that keeps Flora Samonte, Commercial Analyst – Production, at Hill-Smith Family Estates (HSFE), coming to work every day. In her previous role as a Senior Supply Planner, Flora played a lead role in HSFE’s pandemic-induced pivot in 2020 and continues to make waves in the business. 

“If you love what you do it will just flow into the output of your work,” Flora reflects. “There are always challenges in any role, and I just embrace whatever opportunities come in.”

Flora has racked up more than a decade of supply chain experience in the Australian wine industry since arriving in Australia from the Philippines with her husband and two, now teenaged, children.  She’s proud of the life she’s built and how she’s role-modelling success at work while enjoying family life in regional South Australia.

A Glimpse into the Life of a Wine Industry Supply Planner

As well as selling its own brands of wine, Hill-Smith Family Estates is a key distributor for various other wineries both in Australia and internationally. The team manages both import and export logistics and all the supplier and customer relationships along the way, with customers including everyone from major supermarkets to small local restaurants. 

“We are responsible for both demand and supply planning for domestic and for export markets,” Flora explains. “Planning is very important so we can try to reduce the volatility.”   

As Senior Supply Planner, Flora’s role involved collaborating with local and international customers, suppliers and internal teams via regular catch ups, and pulling reporting data from big customers’ self-serve systems to create forecasts and anticipate changes.  “It’s such a dynamic part of the business. You always have to manage stock levels to ensure there’s enough stock to manage the balance of demand,” Flora says.

Managing a Pandemic-Induced Pivot

Flora had settled into life at HSFE with three years of supply planning under her belt, when she was dealt the most challenging hit of her career – the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“The wine shops were considered essential but the restaurants were closed and we couldn’t supply into them. There was suddenly so much demand for commercial wines – people were panic-buying,” Flora recalls. 

Instead of crumbling under the pressure, Flora embraced this opportunity and developed new inventory modelling tools to manage the different requirements while some states were open and others in lockdown. 

“Rather than just accessing their self-serve portal like usual, we were calling key customers every day telling them, ‘This is how much we can support your requirements this week,’” Flora recalls. It’s these kinds of actions that Flora believes are the key to building respectful and collaborative relationships that achieve results. 

“An email is nice, but the easier way to resolve issues is to pick up the phone and explain the situation to them,” she says. Flora’s dynamic work and positive attitude during 2020 earned her an internal Operational Excellence Award, which helped her to undertake a Diploma of Project Management as part of her on-going career development.

Following the Path of Opportunity

Along the way, Flora has always been open to opportunities and not necessarily planned her career journey as much as she plans her work itself. 

At the beginning of her career in the Philippines, Flora worked as a Resource Planning Engineer first in watch manufacturing, before moving to work as a Performance Management Analyst at a printing solutions company. It was there that she moved into working in the supply chain, and completed an APICS CSCP (Certified Supply Chain Professional) certification. 

It was at this time that her husband, a chemical engineer, was offered a role in the Barossa Valley, leading the family to decide to take the plunge and discover life in Australia. “We moved to the Barossa and I thought, ‘Wow, what a very nice place to live. I’ve heard all about the wines, I want to get into the industry,’” Flora recalls. 

Having worked a number of part-time roles to help balance work and family, Flora landed her first full-time role in Australia in 2014 as an Inventory Control Specialist at Grant Burge Wines, where she was responsible for all of their procurement and purchasing. From there she moved to Australian Vintage Limited, where she worked for nearly three years as an Inventory Analyst and Demand Planner. 

“I really believe that having relationships with everyone in the business, both internal and external, helps you achieve whatever your plans are,” she reflects. “The numbers are easier to achieve when everyone understands why you’re doing it.” 

Throughout her career, Flora’s always been committed to achieving mutual benefits by understanding her suppliers’ points of view, always remaining professional and respectful. “If you have challenges yourself, you should also envision your suppliers are having challenges, and I embrace that. We’re going to achieve something if I’m going to support you and we support each other’s goals.”

Taking Opportunities and Strengthening Relationships

Her relationship-focused and opportunistic approach is what landed Flora where she is today, having taken a shift from supply chain into the agricultural side of the HSFE business as a Business Analyst. “Agriculture is a bit challenging, but it’s different with the wine industry,” she explains. “We have limited resources so we need a lot of future planning.”

She retains her realistic and resilient approach to work:  “There are always going to be problems I can guarantee, but you just have to manage it. At the end of the day, we’re just making people happy getting the wine they want.” (In Flora’s case, a pinot noir or chardonnay/chablis…just in case you were wondering!).

We’re launching a new series on Procurious, starting with our interview with Flora Samonte, dedicated to sharing the stories of Procurement and Supply Chain professionals. Each month we’ll be conducting interviews with professionals from around the world, delving into their real-world experiences in Procurement and Supply Chain, and passing on their advice and thoughts on the future of the profession. Make sure you come back for our next instalment!