Keeping Casella Wines moving

Casella Wines, one of Australia’s leading wine exporters, has commissioned the first large-capacity Toyota forklift with a 20-40′ container handler.

The company, based at Yenda, near Griffith in rural NSW, commissioned the new 15-tonne payload Toyota 4-FD150 forklift in September 2009. It has a Bolzoni Auramo side-lift attachment to lift 20- and 40-foot containers.

Casella Wines purchasing officer David Bastianon, said the company commissioned the forklift to increase safety and efficiency.

“We ship an average of 50 containers of wine per day, mainly 20′ containers,” he said.

“The new Toyota forklift means greater ease of handling and the ability to stack empty containers three-high - compared with two-high with the previous eight-tonne payload Toyota forklift,” he said.

Each container, when loaded, holds 1100 cartons or about 10,000 L of wine, for a total daily output of approximately 2.5 million litres from Casella Wines. It has one of the fastest wine bottling lines in the world, capable of processing 36,000 bottles per hour.

Casella Wines has continued to expand its Toyota fleet as wine production increases.

The Toyota 4-FD150 takes the company’s material handling fleet to nearly 80 Toyota forklifts, of which 95% are 2.5-tonne payload Toyota FG25 models.

The company’s first Toyota order was three forklifts and, by 2004, it had 34 Toyota forklifts.

“The new Toyota forklift is performing well,” David Bastianon said.

“We continue to buy Toyota forklifts based on their safety and reliability, backed by the service from Toyota Material Handling [NSW] and their local [Griffith] agent, Liftek.

“The Toyota forklifts here at Yenda are used throughout the whole wine-making, bottling and shipping process.”

Casella Wines is Australia’s largest exporter of wine to the United States. Its Yellow Tail brand is the most powerful family owned wine brand in Australia and the fourth most significant wine brand globally, according to independent UK consultancy Intangible Business in its report; The Power 100.

The Toyota 4-FD150 is part of Toyota’s extensive range of large forklift trucks, suitable for stevedoring, logistics, steel and timber yards and mining applications.

There are 11 diesel-powered models with payloads from 10 to 24 tonnes.