It’s Time to Lose Some Weight (off your bottles)

Posted on: June 25, 2010

An ongoing challenge for Canadian wineries is justifying their elevated price points against lower priced and reasonable quality imports. This will continue into the future with an increased number of half-decent imports that are being introduced under $10 and an exchange rate that is unfavourable to domestic producers.

Many wine consumers will accept paying a modest premium to support their local wineries, but the regional ties do have limits. Canadian wineries have to develop additional strategic reasons to justify their price points so that they are not relying solely on the feel-good factor of buying home-grown. This is especially important in an unstable economy when the majority of consumers are seeking to maximize their purchasing power, sometimes at the expense of local products.

The wine bottle, one of the most visible aspects of your finished product, is one of the biggest opportunities to improve your environmental record.

A dedicated commitment to corporate sustainability will provide a key promotional advantage with an increasingly eco-conscious public. The wine bottle, one of the most visible aspects of your finished product, is one of the biggest opportunities to improve your environmental record.

While the use of alternative wine packaging has grown over the past several years it remains a niche market and has shown no signs of overtaking the wine industry. Single-use bottles remain the dominant packaging option and should remain so for the foreseeable future. Given that reality, lighter-weight bottles are the highest impact area that wineries can reduce the carbon footprint of their packaging. As an added bonus lighter bottles will reduce your shipping costs, improving your margins and bottom line.

Other alcoholic beverage sectors in Canada are much farther ahead in bottle weight reductions than the wine industry. A growing number of spirits are using lightweight PET bottles, even the premium spirit brands. Beer bottle weights are 30% lighter today than they were 20 years ago.

So what is the major obstacle keeping most of the wine industry from adopting lighter bottle weights? It is primarily a marketing issue and has nothing to do with bottle quality or strength. Tall and heavy deep-punted bottles (like the one pictured below) were created years ago by marketers who wanted to equate bottle size with the quality of the wine inside. This ‘big bottle’ mindset is still pervasive in the wine industry, with many wineries hesitant to abandon heavy bottles for fear of losing the desired high-end consumers that purchase the premium vintages. The result: many wines are sold in bottles exceeding 1000 grams in weight, more than double the industry average and three times heavier than lightweight bottles that have as much strength and durability as their heavier cousins.

South Africa is emerging as a world leader in eco-friendly wine production.

South Africa is emerging as a world leader in eco-friendly wine production. An industry-wide commitment to lighter wine bottles is one of their most recent initiatives. Over the past three years the average 750 ml bottle weight for South African wines has decreased 15%, from 516 grams to 437 grams. Now a lightweight 350 gram bottle is being promoted that will reduce their average bottle weights even more.

And if you don’t think the marketing or reduced shipping costs are good enough reasons, how about the added leverage you will have in dealing with your major distribution outlets, whether it is the BCLDB or LCBO. Both agencies have stated a preference for alternative or lighter-weight packaging to reduce their own shipping costs, and the BCLDB is currently reviewing options of how to reduce the average weight of glass containers in its system by 20%.

Give the lighter bottles a try, and give the South African wines a run for their money as sustainable wine champions. Being a local product and an environmental champion at the same time is a great story to tell.

Stephen Boles is a cofounder of Kuzuka (www.kuzuka.net), helping clients with carbon footprints, carbon credits, and corporate sustainability. Kuzuka focuses on the agriculture, food and beverage sectors. Contact Steve at 519-235-6250 or sboles [at] kuzuka [dot] com.