 |
Alternative packaging is one of the hot topics in the wine trade at the moment, but it’s not exactly a new development. Indeed, glass bottles themselves are a relatively recent innovation in the 7,000 year history of wine, dating back only to the eighteenth century. Prior to this, wine was transported in bulk, and sold from barrel or clay amphora, moving to more temporary storage media at destination, such as the wine skin. It’s also worth bearing in mind that much of today’s wine still never sees a bottle, but is drunk close to its source.
In recent years, moves have been made to replace glass, which while being cheap and excellent at protecting wine from the ingress of oxygen, is heavy and has a tendency to break. As well as the cost and difficulty of transporting glass bottles, there have been three main drivers behind attempts to find alternatives — one of which is currently gaining momentum.
The first is that the wine sector is always looking for ways to innovate. Alongside developing more consumer friendly styles of wine, branders also see packaging as another way to give their wines an edge in a crowded marketplace. Second, the widespread acceptance of screwcaps in markets such as the United Kingdom — and the way that attitudes in countries previously hostile to such change such as the United States have begun to shift — has given producers the confidence to consider packaging other than simply glass bottles with an in-neck closure and capsule. Third, and most importantly, environmental concerns are now a factor in decisions made by both retailers and consumers, and the alternatives to glass promise to reduce the carbon footprint of wine significantly. It is this third factor that is providing most of the momentum for the current interest in alternatives to glass. In a brief overview of this topical subject, I’ll assess the strengths and weaknesses of various wine packaging options and then consider consumer and trade attitudes towards them.
Bag-in-box
Putting wine in a plastic bag with a tap suits those consumers who drink modestly or infrequently. As a glass of wine is drawn from a wine box the internal bag collapses so that no air enters to fill the gap left by the vacated wine. This avoids any oxygen ingress and subsequent oxidation, with the consequence that the residual wine is kept fresh for some time. The bag-in-box is also an economical way to ship wine, because a pallet of bag-in-box wine holds 80% more wine and is less than two thirds the weight of the equivalent volume of glass-bottled wine, thus reducing the carbon footprint. Boxes also appeal to retailers because they are easy to merchandise. The drawback of bag-in-box is the high oxygen transmission of the bag material, which can result in rapid product evolution and short shelf life.
There are two main bag materials: metallized polyester and coextrusion with ethyl vinyl alcohol (EVOH). Both have drawbacks. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The metallized polyester bag suffers from flex cracking during transport which can quadruple the oxygen transmission level; EVOH doesn’t suffer from this problem, but works less well at higher temperatures and humidities. Another source of oxygen transmission is the tap, which is plastic, and there is also some extra oxygen pick up during filling. All of this results in a shelf life of just nine months or so, which has resulted in a move to filling bags at their destination market. In addition, the sulfur dioxide levels of bag-in-box products are usually elevated to counter the higher oxygen transmission.
Sweden is an interesting case study for bag-in-box wine, because this format accounts for more than half of all still light wine sales (according to 2006 figures). This is largely because of the Swedish alcohol monopoly, which creates unusual market conditions. First, there are no price promotions, which makes bag-in-box the cheapest way to buy wine. Also, because there are only 400 monopoly shops, consumers prefer to stock up in large shopping trips and bag-in-box is the easiest way to do this. Bag-in box is also dominant in the Norwegian wine market, and is growing in popularity in Denmark, but has made few inroads in Germany. In countries such as the UK, France, Australia and the USA, bag-in-box continues to have a strong presence on the market, showing some growth, but looking unlikely to expand much further at the expense of glass. In Great Britain, for example, while 40% of wine buyers had purchased a bag-in- box in the past three months, a full third rejected the packaging.
PET
The latest development in packaging, is the appearance of 75cl (standard sized) PET bottles on supermarket shelves. Sainsbury’s in the UK has launched a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc and an Australian Shiraz Rosé in PET, while Australian producer Wolf Blass has launched two of its Green Label wines in PET internationally. PET, a plastic whose formal name is poly-ethylene teraphthalate, has been used before, most commonly with 25cl bottles, and also with inexpensive 1.5 litre bottles from the south of France. But this current move to PET is significant because it is the first time that wine in standard sized 75cl bottles has been presented in plastic on supermarket shelves. Potential advantages include weight (a 75cl glass bottle weighs around 400g; the same size in PET weighs 54g, making transport more efficient), robustness (PET bottles don’t break, which makes them safer and easier to transport), size (they are considerably smaller) and recyclability (for example, 92% of local councils in the UK have facilities for recycling PET).
Beyond its lightness for the consumer carrying two bottles home for dinner from the grocery store, the main driving force behind the adoption of PET is the environmental benefit. Shipping lighter, bottles reduces their carbon footprint through savings in the transport chain. As an example, the UK consumes around 1b bottles of wine |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
each year, and estimates are that reducing the bottles for all these to the lightest available would save around 90 000 tons of CO2. If this is coupled to bottling in the UK, with bulk shipment of the wine, then the savings are magnified because around double the volume of wine can be shipped in bulk per container compared with bottled wine.
The potential disadvantage with PET is preserving wine quality. PET allows more oxygen ingress than glass, and thus the wine has a shorter shelf-life. As with all plastics, PET allows oxygen diffusion. To counter this, barrier technologies and oxygen scavengers are incorporated into the PET construction. The Sainsbury’s bottles are manufactured by Amcor PET Packaging UK, with the barrier under licence from Constar. Barrier technologies lose their effectiveness at higher temperatures, which is one of the reasons that it’s inadvisable to ship PET bottles over long distances. Being an oil-based polymer, PET could suffer though as the world’s oil supplies are depleted. Worse, plastics have an increasingly negative image in the eyes of consumers, with 41% of the British wine drinkers rejecting it: convincing them that it’s an environmentally friendly option will be difficult. But, if used creatively, PET bottles could become an intrinsic component of the image of new brands, rather than just lighter, smaller versions of existing brands. As an indication of how seriously PET is being taken, Yvon Mau — a leading player in Bordeaux — will be adding a PET line to their existing set-up of nine bottling lines.
Tetra Prisma
Perhaps the most ‘alternative’ of the alternatives to glass bottles for wine is the Tetrapak’s Tetra Prisma. While Tetrapak’s Tetra Brick has been around for quite a while, it hasn’t really caught on. The better-looking Tetra Prisma is a new development and is making waves in the wine world of late.
French company Boisset have been market leaders with this packaging: their French Rabbit brand of Vin de Pays d’Oc wines has been designed with the Tetra Prisma as an intrinsic component of the brand, and was launched in August 2005. Technically speaking, the Prisma has an aluminium foil layer sandwiched between polyethylene, with an outer cardboard skin. Barrier properties of this foil are good because the flex cracking that occurs in the foil layer of bags is unlikely to occur. However, there will be some oxygen ingress through the cap. Boisset claim that the Tetra Prisma reduces packaging by 90% compared with glass, and is fully recyclable. Recently, southern French producer Mont Tauch released one of its low priced Village du Sud range, the old vines Grenache, in Tetra Prisma. They use an environmental justification for this decision, but are also championing Tetra’s other benefits: ease of opening and resealing, light weight, robustness and collapsability. A spokesperson revealed the wine is not prepared differently for Tetra Prisma, and that |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
the expected shelf-life is six months, adding that it was better than for bag-in-box. Mont Tauch have found Sweden and Canada to be most receptive to this packaging. The English, on the other hand, are still very sceptical, with 67% of wine drinkers rejecting such formats. Interestingly, Canada and Sweden are both places where buying is controlled by a government-backed alcohol monopoly. Perhaps the influence of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, who first listed Tetra Prisma wine in August 2005 and who now offers 60 different wines in this packaging is one explanation for the high success of this format in Canada.
Pouches and cans
A variation on the bag-in-box theme that has recently shown promise is the wine pouch, which is effectively the bag without the box. Two prominent brands, Arniston Bay of South Africa and Palandri of Australia, have been released in the ‘E-Pak’, which is a foil/plastic pouch. In the UK, supermarket Tesco have recently listed the Arniston Bay 1.5 litre E-Pak. Ring-pull cans are available and are widely stocked by supermarkets, but this remains a niche, involving cheap wines, and shows little sign of growth. For the moment, 83% of all British drinkers reject the packaging.
Lightweighting
One other move that should be mentioned here is lightweighting, which refers to an industry push to reduce the average weight of glass wine bottles in an effort to reduce their carbon footprint. The average bottle weight is currently around 500g, whereas the lightest 75cl bottle weighs around 300g, so there is plenty of scope for saving weight.
The consumer’s view
How do consumers feel about these alternatives to glass? The answer is that no one knows for sure, and most of the big retailers and brand owners are taking a wait-and-see approach. Unlike their approach to screwcaps, which was one of advocacy and consumer education, the UK’s leading supermarket Tesco is taking a more cautious approach with alternative packaging, which seems to be mirrored by the other big players. “Let’s see what the customer feels,” says Dan Jago of Tesco. Currently, both PET and Tetrapak are being marketed as occasion driven packaging, suitable for outdoor drinking such as picnics, sports matches or festivals.
One interesting set of data has come from a recent consumer survey carried out in the UK by Wine Intelligence, in conjunction with the Wine and Spirit Trade Association. This study confirms anecdotal evidence that glass weight and colour are not important choosing cues for consumers buying wine and therefore that industry-led moves from heavy to lighter glass was not likely to encounter heavy consumer resistance. Only 13% of consumers think that lighter bottles signify cheaper wine, but alongside this, only one third consider these lighter bottles to be better for the environment. Perhaps more interestingly, consumer attitudes to alternative packaging seem |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
quite open. It seems that PET bottles are the preferred alternative packaging, with bag-in-box a close second. Tetrapak is currently less well received than the others, but it seems that it is only the ring-pull can that a majority of consumers are opposed to. However, we must be careful not to over-interpret these results: there may be a difference between someone saying what they are prepared to buy, and what they will actually buy in practice — when they are shelling out their own money they are likely to be more cautious and stick with the familiar. Often people seem open to the idea of change, but don’t actually do much in the way of changing.
In conclusion, it seems that alternatives to glass bottles could have a bright future for wine in markets where consumer attitudes are open, and that concerns over the carbon footprint of wine, as well as pricing, could be the main driver. Alternative packaging is not something that consumers necessarily want, but it seems that they will embrace it if retailers push it, and promote it, using green motives as the story. After all, 74% of all buyers say that promotional offers are a factor when buying wine. But the possibility also remains that alternatives to glass could be used creatively by wine marketers as an innovative aspect of new brand design.
Almost all of the available alternatives to glass reduce the shelf life of wine, which means that supply chain and inventory management needs to be particularly good if consumers are to be presented with wines in optimal condition.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
