Vineyard Cost Savings  
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Vineyard Cost Savings

We are targeting an annual reduction of $10,000 per vineyard employee earning over $50,000/year. Vineyard management salary for small vineyards in 2005 was an average of $77,000. Our formula is simple: as long as we can offer housing and electric as part of the full package, there will be a savings generated. We share this savings with the client, whose business is able to realize a greater profit. Our service will be in offering existing vineyards the opportunity to cut their operating costs with a substantial reduction in employee operating cost. The proposed plan offers a cost reduction that makes sense and solves the affordable housing issue for the target market. 
 
 

2005 Wine Industry Salary Report listed in Wine Business Monthly:

  • Wine industry salaries are up 5.8% compared to 3.5 percent nationally; and while consolidation has resulted in fewer jobs, qualified professionals can now command even higher salaries. [Salary results in PDF downloadable from WBM]
  • Vineyard managers' salaries at all sizes of wineries were similar; all were mid-$70,000. Vineyard managers at small wineries were the highest paid, with an average salary of $77,083.
  • According to Parker, a "stigma of agriculture still lives with cellar and field positions," and this has been around for a long time, perhaps contributing to vineyard managers' salaries lagging behind other winery professionals' salaries.

The simple point of fact is that professions earning nearly $80,000 a year will not choose to live in substandard housing.

Cost savings demonstrated with other agricultural growers are available to vineyards who follow the proposed model, and additional savings come from the energy conservation and renewable energy generation.

  • Personnel costs associated with vineyards have increased substantially in the past year.

  • The Association of Bay Area Governments projects that Solano County's population will increase by 36 percent, to nearly half a million, by 2040, and Vacaville's population is expected to grow by 30,000. This is a long term projection of the problem of affordable housing.
  • Existing employees of a client can be utilized by offering to subcontract those same employees back at a reduced cost.
  • With affordable housing at a premium with no end in sight, the first service will be in providing the equivalent of $1500 to $1800/mo in housing to each employee and their family.This includes self-generated Renewable Energy plus a new construction two or three bedroom home with a garage.

  • We can extend this to virtually any agricultural business, however we are targeting Vineyards because of the extensive skill required of the Management staff, and the high salaries of the Sales and Marketing personnel.

  

Typical Napa / Solano MSA housing cost / energy cost for 1200 sq. ft. residential rate with PG&E.