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Co-op launches wine with ‘luxurious’ stick-on label
The Co-op is claiming a UK first for a stick-on label that gives the appearance of a luxury embossed gloss. Victoria Moore explains why this could be a game-changer for the trade.
Goodbye heavy glass bottles and glossy boxes that reek of luxury, the 21st century’s sustainability conscience has come calling for you. Or has it?
As anyone selling wines or spirits is keenly aware, the quality cues of the look and feel of the bottle still form an important part of the buying decision for most shoppers.
To give a high-end feel while light-weighting bottles, many spirits brands work on the tactility of the bottle cap. For wines, the Co-op is claiming a UK first for an innovation it has launched for AW24/25: a stick-on label that gives the appearance of embossed glass. The label, which is made by French company Label’Glass, appears on the Co-op’s new Le Collectif Lot Series Minervois 2022 (13.5%, £8.85) and mimics the circular embossings often found just above the front label of wines from certain southern French appellations.
It is glossy to look at and appears to blend seamlessly into the glass bottle, with a raised feel when you run your fingers over it. The Label Glass is made from 0.2g of new polyester and Co-op says the glass saving is 140g per bottle, equivalent to about 25% of the weight of a standard embossed bottle.
“The initiative was proposed by the winery, the Cave de Saint Chinian, when we discussed the project and wanted to look at embossed bottles,” says Co-op buyer Sarah Benson. “We’ve been doing a lot of work on light-weighting glass already and were keen to trial it. We’ve previously asked our members for their input [and they told us that] weighty, decorative bottles still resonated them and encouraged purchase, especially for more premium wines.”
The project is part of Co-op’s longer-term glass reduction work. The retailer says it already has a high level of recycled content in its own-brand glass, which uses 43% of recycled material.
“We’ve implemented light weighting in our wine ranges from Chile, South Africa, Spain and Australia. Our average bottle weight across our entire own-brand range is already down to 404g, which is beyond the Sustainable Wine Round Table (SWR) target,” says Benson.
The SWR target is to reduce average bottle weight among members from 550g to 420g before the end of 2026.
Some sustainability campaigners will argue that the use of even a small amount of a petroleum derived product – Label’Glass is made from new polyester – is a negative. The Co-op says it has calculated that the CO2 saving on production alone is 139.33g per bottle, with further savings on the CO2 output on transport.
“The bottle is fully recyclable and is recycled in the same way as any other bottle with a label or even capsule on. The Label’Glass effectively burns off.”
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