Packamama arms Australian wine industry with rPET bottles to combat climate change

24 Jun 2022 --- Packamama is introducing its eco-flat wine bottles to the Australian market with Accolade Wines and Taylors Wines. Accolade Wines’ Banrock Station and Taylors’ One Small Step wines are now available for purchase in selected Liquorland and First Choice Liquor Market stores nationally starting this month.

The eco-flat wine bottles are made entirely from Australian-sourced recycled PET, helping to improve the wine industry’s carbon footprint by targeting an environmental hotspot: the conventional glass bottle.

“Sixty-one percent of Australian wine drinkers think glass bottles are an environmentally sustainable packaging format, when in fact they are the single largest contributor to wine’s carbon footprint. This demonstrates the need for better information and awareness in the space,” Santiago Navarro, CEO and founder at Packamama, tells PackagingInsights. 

Transport efficiency 
The new company’s eco-flat bottle shares the classic high-shouldered silhouette of a traditional “Bordeaux” wine bottle. However, when turned to the side, it reveals a slimmer, flatter profile that allows twice as many bottles to fit in a standard wine case – which means it’s much more efficient to transport.

Using rPET also saves weight, and with the bottles being 83% lighter, emissions in transport are reduced as well as the energy in production and recycling to further tackle greenhouse gas emissions. The eco-flat wine bottles are made entirely from Australian-sourced rPET.

Australian packaging trends
The vast majority of the Australian population is aware of the magnitude and urgency of the climate crisis, including the necessity for low carbon footprint packaging choices, highlights Navarro. 

The Australian Packaging Covenant Organization has ambitious targets for packaging. By 2025, packaging should be 100% reusable, compostable or recyclable; 70% of plastic packaging should be recyclable or compostable; and packaging should contain 30% recycled content.

“Our bottles are ahead of this curve, made from 100% rPET and fully recyclable after use. These targets demonstrate a trend echoed by much of the world for a transition to a circular economy. They also highlight why our eco-flat bottles are a benchmark example of packaging for a circular economy,” says Navarro.

“Another trend is that recycling increases. Traditionally, recycling rates in Australia have lagged behind those of other developed world countries. However, there is a significant investment in developing recycling infrastructures to help keep materials in circulation, including the AUD$1billion (approximately US$690 million) Recycling Modernisation Fund.”

Climate concerns
The most recent Ipsos Climate Change Report shows that the majority of Australians are concerned about climate change (83%). Additionally, “even in the midst of a pandemic, climate change stands out as Australian millennials’ (33%) and Gen Zs’ (33%) primary concern,” according to Deloitte. 

Banrock Station in Packamama eco-flat bottle. Faced with a climate crisis and CO2 emissions rising alarmingly fast, Navarro believes wine drinkers will no longer accept formats which help fuel the problem. Since the equivalent of 660 million 750 ml bottles of wine are consumed by Australians each year, it is a lot of volume where carbon footprint could be reduced. 

“Our bottles are a lower carbon solution without compromising on the aesthetics, or emotional appeal of drinking wine poured from a bottle.” 

Wine packaging forerunners
According to Navarro, Australians have also typically been at the forefront of accepting innovations in wine packaging.

“A great example of this is the prominence of cask wine in Australia and the widespread adoption of screw caps. For instance, Taylors Wines, who we are collaborating with in Australia, took the decision to switch all of their wines to screw caps from cork. In 2007, only approximately 50% of Australian wines used screw caps.”

“By 2020, Australian winemakers had adopted screw caps for approximately 90% of their red and white wines. Combined with having to find solutions in a climate crisis, data like this gives us the confidence that more and more consumers will choose better packaging for wine, including our flat, rPET superior wine bottles,” he concludes.

By Natalie Schwertheim