> Most airlines employ a wine consultant who will use a number calculated by the finance team to put together a list of 20 wines that are available both in the market and in the volume required. Tim Clark, the president of Emirates, wanted its wine list to be a differentiator. So the airline made the decision to partner with MMI and buy as directly as possible from merchants and vineyards and in smaller quantities, if necessary—10,000-bottle parcels instead of the typical 24,000 or 48,000.
Reminds me of Delta Air Lines' 2012 purchase of an East Coast oil refinery [1], a more refined :) take on Southwest's profitable fuel-price hedge last decade [2]. Both Emirates' and Delta's plays echo a comment I read yesterday about "identifying supply-chain components that can be [more] economically produced in-house" [3].
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/01/business/delta-air-lines-t...
[2] http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/industries/travel/2008-...