Paper or Plastic?
The reported highlight of last year’s
Trend Talks a dramatic presentation of Frugalpac’s paper wine bottle. Little did we know what the rest of the year would hold. The 3-year-old British sustainable packaging company made headlines in autumn for not only a royal debut in Bordeaux but a Netflix one as well in the “Bodies” crime thriller, posing as “the wine of the future” for a storyline set in 2053. A future you can visit yourself in their “supermarket shelf of the future” display at their ProWein stand (Hall 9, booth B71).
The 83-gram Frugal bottle is a food grade pouch covered by a paperboard outer layer made from 94% recyclable paperboard. According to a recent company press release, this translates into a carbon footprint that is 84% lower than glass bottles. Like Element [al]’s aluminum bottle, each Frugal bottle holds 750 ml of wine and echoes the shape of a traditional wine bottle. Frugal bottles are now available in 25 countries, with a significant presence in major UK supermarkets.
Part of what sets Frugalpac apart is that the company is looking to sell the assembly machines into local wine producing regions rather than the bottles in order to lower transportation and carbon emissions impact. The first two, Monterey Wine Company in the USA and KinsBrae Packaging in Canada, will become operational in the first half of 2024.
It’s What’s Inside that Counts
Of the nearly 2500 producers, trade, and consumers polled for the 2022 ProWein Business Report, 60% (producers) and 45% (trade) said they had no plans to offer anything other than glass for the next two years. The pushme-pullyou of wine is that while we know there are better, more effective, more responsible containers, for many, giving up the familiarity and tradition of glass can simply be “a sip too much.”
Trends this year seem to have taken that into account and focused on rethinking packaging material rather than packaging size. The irony is that while these choices are key to reducing wine’s overall carbon footprint, in order to change the minds and buying decisions of consumers, the same level of attention and considerations of quality must be applied to the wine inside the vessel as well. For the follow-up to that childhood cliché holds equally true for wine as well: it’s what’s inside that counts.
Note for Editors:
High-resolution visuals for ProWein and the graphs can be found in our photo database in the “Media & News” section at www.prowein.com