Pernod Ricard Winemakers, the premium wine division of Pernod Ricard, today announced that food system artificial intelligence innovator Trellis Ltd. will provide accurate grape yield, quality, harvest timing and procurement cost prediction across Australia and New Zealand.

The grapes market was valued at $167.9 billion worldwide in 2018 and is estimated to reach a value of $254.3 billion by 2024, according to a report from Mordor Intelligence. The year 2016 saw an annual production of 8.2 million metric tons of grapes, which are one of the top 20 agricultural commodities produced worldwide.

As a result, the viticulture and vintner industry is constantly looking for better ways to become more efficient when it comes to supply chains. Many different factors can affect the outcome of a grape harvest, such as growing seasons, weather and pests — and many of them can be detected and recorded into data reservoirs, which in turn means machine learning can be employed to predict potential risks before they occur or mitigate them as they happen.

“As we continue to lead the wine industry into the digital era, we are committed to working with artificial intelligence innovators that are reimagining global supply chains,” said Alex Kahl, lead of the project that will optimize the operations for Pernod Ricard Winemakers. “We were impressed by Trellis’s expertise in the industry and proven ability to scale across complex business units and multiple geographies.”

Trellis works closely with food and beverage producers, as well as their upstream providers, to identify inefficiencies and provide real-time data insights needed to transform their organizations and make decisions. It uses AI-powered, intelligent cloud-based live data from dynamic sources throughout the entire food and beverage supply chain to predict quality, yield, timing of harvest and associated expenses to help lower costs.

“Our traditional food and beverage supply chains are broken and volatile,” said Ilay Englard, founder and chief executive of Trellis. “Working with industry visionaries like Pernod Ricard Winemakers that share our commitment to using data to fuel smarter decisions, Trellis is building a more sustainable, resilient food supply and demand system.”

Pernod Richard Winemakers was founded in 2010, but it has its roots dating back to 1828. The Trellis data integration will be arriving for viticulture, harvest operations, supply chain, procurement and wine production teams later this month with desktop and mobile applications.

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