Can certification make a difference

John and the ViewCraft team recently worked with Bogle Winery to help them develop a sustainability program and begin documenting achievements to build awareness among employees, customers and distributors. Their facilities are located in Clarksburg and their vineyards had already been certified under a regional sustainability program - Lodi Rules, as well as a specific state program - Certified California Sustainable Winegrowing, so management decided they would like to try to achieve the Sustainable Sacramento Business certification for their winery. ViewCraft worked with the staff to help aggregate all of the necessary data and information and prepare the application. John attended the certification audit and at the end of the audit Ryan Bogle officially received certification. As John was walking with the Ryan back to his office, Ryan said, “I wonder if this certification will have any sales benefit.” As they sat down the computer pinged with a new email message.  Ryan glanced at his email and saw a message from a distributor in New York. There was a restaurant chain the Bogle sales team had been trying to place their wine with for some time and the distributor said the restaurant management wanted to know if the winery had any certified sustainable practices. Ryan shot off an email on the recent certification and within minutes the distributor emailed a reply to say they landed the account. This 15-minute turn around was a record!