Packaging / Advertising & Office

A store in Scotland has become the first place in the UK to store wine in paper bottles. The move is aimed at reducing carbon emissions associated with glass bottles.

Three Scottish franchises will sell the Italian wine in its new lightweight, recyclable container, which the paper bottle maker says has 84% lower carbon emissions than glass and lower than plastic bottles made from 100% recycled plastic one third.

The 750ml bottle is made from 94% recycled cardboard by Ipswitch-based Frugalpac and is being sold in Woodwinters Wine & Whiskys stores for the first time.

The first customer of Frugalpac paper wine bottle was Cantina Goccia winery in Italy, and then successively received orders from wineries around the world, including Japanese sake, American whiskey, and wines from Spain, Australia and France...etc. The world's first paper-packed gin, released in 2021 by Silent Pool Distillers in the UK.

The paper wine bottle is made by flattening, printing and seaming the recycled paper, and then wrapping the inner layer of the wine body with plastic wrapping material. 94% of the raw material of the paper wine bottle is recycled paper, which weighs only 85 grams. It has environmental protection benefits from upstream packaging, downstream transportation, end use to final recycling.

Paper wine bottles can reduce the loss rate during transportation. Due to their lighter weight, they are more energy-efficient and faster during transportation, which can reduce transportation costs. When consumers use it, there is no risk of breakage. In the final recycling, the paper wine bottle only needs to disassemble the outer paper film and the inner plastic bottle, and put them into the recycling bin respectively. Even if it fails to be recycled, it takes 1 million years to decompose glass, 1,000 years for plastic, and an average of 2 to 6 weeks for paper.

In addition, the wine label design space of the paper wine bottle is larger, the bottle body can be printed 360 degrees, and the plasticity is also higher, which is also another incentive for wineries.

"It is clear that there is a huge demand for bottles made from recycled cardboard with the lowest carbon footprint."

The birth of paper wine bottles brought a sea change in consumer awareness of single-use container waste. The leaching of microplastics into liquids, as well as the tides of plastic waste in the oceans—much of it from plastic bottles—means that retailers and manufacturers need to focus on sustainability and the environmental concerns that come with it.

Douglas Wood, founder of Woodwinters Wine and Whiskys, said: “We are delighted to be the first store in the world to sell Frugal Bottle. Woodwinters has always been passionate about promoting innovation in sustainability.

"We are therefore delighted to offer one of our favourite wines in such an eco-friendly bottle. We think it will be a huge hit."

Ceri Parke, owner of Umbrian wine producer Cantina Goccia, said: “We are proud to have made the historic use of the world’s most sustainable wine bottle. For us, Frugal Bottle aims to serve an industry hungry for innovation Enabling a more sustainable form of packaging. It will help us make the beverage industry zero-carbon.