Packamama develops low-carbon, eco-flat rPET bottles for The Wine Society

UK – Sustainable packaging and manufacturing company, Packamama has developed low-carbon, eco-flat rPET bottles for The Wine Society.

The flat-pack bottles are lighter than glass bottles, weighing 63g compared to an average of 460g for glass bottles, resulting in a lower-carbon footprint and offering consumers greater convenience and portability through their space-saving design.

Santiago Navarro, CEO and founder of Packamama, says that the move toward eco-flat bottles in the wine industry is primarily motivated by environmental concerns rather than intentions to cut costs. 

“[The Wine Society’s] key focus is on making changes to their packaging to hit their carbon footprint reduction goals. As part of that, they have chosen two technologies (bag-in box and Packamama eco-flat bottles) that are scalable and make sense from a commercial perspective,” he says.

“By using our Packamama eco-flat bottles, there will be cost savings made in the supply chain, but from a direct packaging perspective, there will be no cost savings at this trial volume stage.”

Shifting away from glass

In May, The Wine Society released a report titled “Alternative Packaging for Wine,” which assessed a variety of wine packaging formats for sustainability measures via LCAs.

The report found that while typical PET bottle formats did not have the lowest global warming potential compared to others in the LCAs covered in the review, they still had a significantly lower potential carbon footprint than single-use glass bottles.

“The word plastic packaging is too general a term to be insightful,” says Navarro. “We believe that the specific material we use, rPET, is best placed to offer wine a low-emissions future while creating attractive-looking bottles.”

“Switching to rPET packaging should be done while using smart design, as we do at Packamama, to stand out, look bigger, and be more engaging for consumers.”

In June last year, Packamama developed rPET bottles for the Australian wine industry to combat climate change.

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.

The new bottles mimic the high-shouldered shape of traditional ‘Bordeaux’ wine bottles and have a slimmer profile meaning twice the usual number of bottles can be packed into a standard-sized wine case, reducing storage space and transportation costs.

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