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My submission is in relation to unfair trading practices within the wine market. These practices relate to the ability of large wine businesses, that generally have external funding sources available to them, to unfairly buy shelf space or preferred supplier positions within the market that are unaffordable to those wine businesses that rely purely on their wine business as source of marketing spend.
The polarization of the wine market into smaller numbers of larger groups both in the off-premise and the on-premise provide smaller opportunities for wine producers to sell their wines. If it was a level playing field there would still be plenty of opportunity for these smaller producers to compete in the open market place despite their being less individual outlets to work with. However there is no way a small wine producer can compete with the financial incentives provided by the large companies for the limited number of opportunities available. The intention of the large wine companies is to eliminate any market share from their competitors and maximize their sales volumes into the marketplaces using unfair practices.
In some cases (eg Clubs in NSW) these large companies require outlets to sign contracts that ensure a monopolization of their wine offering to the exclusion of all competition. These contracts come with financial incentives for the outlets that cannot be competed with by wine producers who have no form of external funding.
The use of financial incentives by the large wine distributors has an effect on the consumer in its reduction of competition and gradual domination of wine lists and shelf space in the marketplace creating a restricted choice for the consumer. The use of this restrictive trade practice is resulting in lessening opportunities for small wine producers to allow their wines to be exposed to the market and is resulting in the Australian wine industry looking more like a commodity product driven by large business which lacks integrity and authenticity and increasingly lacking relevance in wine markets all around the world.