Garçon Wine challenges ‘grotesquely’ inefficient wine logistics with innovative new case

Garçon Wines – the innovators behind the wine bottle that fits through a letter box – has launched a wine case that promises to slash the cost of transporting and storing wine by 60% and challenge the ‘grotesque’ inefficiency of wine logistics.

The London-based wine company has designed a case that fits ten of its flat wine bottles into the space that would normally fit four regular ones, by stacking the slimline bottles more efficiently, and making use of the airspace around the bottles necks.

The new 10 Flat Bottle Case is 55% smaller than the standard secondary packaging used in the industry, which typically contains 6 regular 75cl glass bottles, and once packed weighs around 8.5kgs, around 1k more than the regular 6-bottle case. It had the potential to slash the cost of packaging, warehousing, handling and transport, the company claimed.

Garçon Wines CEO & co-founder Santiago Navarro said using the 10 Flat Bottle Case in conjunction with the slimline 100% post-consumer recycled (PCR) PET bottles it launched in 2017 would offer reductions in CO₂ emissions and business costs “never seen before”.

“Current wine transit cases used to transport 6 or 12 bottles of wine are inefficient and ineffective resulting in unnecessarily costly logistics, excessive packaging, wasted resources and a grotesque carbon footprint. This is because the bottles being used are not fit for purpose in a 21st century world of e-commerce, complex supply chains, a global world, and most importantly, climate change,” he said.

“The problems stemming from an unsuitable primary pack – a 19^th century wine bottle – are amplified into secondary packaging that is equally, or arguably excessively, unsuitable.”

Excessive use of packaging at a time when the industry needed to be more resource efficient was “unsustainable”, he argued.

The space saving design is promising to cut packaging costs by half, slashing costs from up to 10p to just 5p per bottle on an average consignment of 50,0000 bottles, while also reducing the number of heavy goods vehicles on the road transporting pallets, cutting CO2 emissions by around 60%.

Navarro said the launch lead the way for change.

“Wine is a uniquely engaging product with a high emotional connection. It therefore provides a unique platform… to communicate a change in the way we do things to help mitigate against a climate change catastrophe and create a more sustainable economy,” he said.

“It will hopefully inspire and motivate other industries to follow suit.”

The 10 Flat Bottle Case, which was designed in collaboration with packaging company DS Smith, is being launched at Packaging Innovations Birmingham 2019 at the NEC on 27-28 February.