Local distillery hosts pilot program

A PILOT course by the Australian Distillers Association was held at Kilderkin Distillery in Ballarat last week.

The introduction to distillery safety course aimed to educate employees and business owners to ensure safety standards can be upheld across the Victorian distilling industry.

The program was run with the support of Agriculture Victoria, the Spirits Victoria Association, Australian Distillers Association and Valudus Risk Assessment.

“This is a part of the distillery door program put on by Agriculture Victoria and it’s to boost Victorian distilleries,” said Sebastian Costello, industry development officer for the Victorian spirits industry.

“The idea of it is to create a really, really great baseline to help Victorian distillers become the best in the world.

“We’ve got a really good safety culture in distilling, but any bit can help.”

Chris Pratt, owner of Kilderkin Distillery, said it was important to host the course and make the information more accessible to regional businesses.

“There’s quite a number of distilleries in regional areas, so it was a great opportunity to provide a range of distillers from rural and regional Victoria.

“This industry we like to share knowledge, we like to help each other.”

Mr Costello said ensuring all businesses are working to uniform standards will help the industry grow and prosper.

“We’re a really young industry and half our distillers are in rural areas and the majority our distillers are small, boutique distilleries,” he said.

“The idea is that you’ve got to follow all the legislation, all of the rules, but everyone wants to be safe.

“If you can make sure that the right information is going to the right people, that rises the standard of distilling.”

As part of the pilot program, further courses will take place in Mornington, Geelong and Melbourne later this month.