News

Waitrose cans mini glass bottles across wine range

11 January 2023 By Arabella Mileham

UK supermarket Waitrose is switching all of its mini-glass bottle formats to aluminium cans by the end of next week, it has revealed.

The upmarket supermarket will replace its 187ml glass bottles with cans across its’ range, with the exception of small bottles of Champagne, Prosecco, Cava and Rioja, due to the restrictions imposed by those appellations.

The new canned range format will come in 187ml, 200ml and 250ml sizes, will include a wide range of whites, reds and rosés wines, including customer favourites Sauvignon Blanc, Malbec, Pinot Grigio, and Chardonnay.

Waitrose’s beer, wine and spirit bulk sourcing manager, Barry Dick MW said the supermarket was delighted to pioneer this move and make reducing waste even easier for its customers.

The move is expected to save around 320 tonnes of packaging, as aluminium cans weigh significantly less than glass, and create less than half the amount of CO2 than the equivalent single-use glass bottle. They are lighter to transport and also take up less space than glass bottles. Cans can also be recycled an infinite number of times.

It comes of soaring sales of UK sales of canned wine, which are up from £2.5 million in 2018 to £10.7 million in 2020, having become more accepted by consumers.

“We know that more people are buying their drinks in canned formats, from cocktails-on-the-go to craft beer, which is why making this shift in our wine category makes so much sense,” Dick said.