From research to action: How SWR is turning packaging insights into a practical tool

Many of our listeners will be familiar with SWR's packaging work in regards to our bottle light weighting initiatives through the Bottle Weight Accord and, as recently, our Sparkling Bottle Weight Accord.

But we are also busy developing a wine packaging choice tool.

This will help guide companies on packaging decisions, indicating when glass is most appropriate and when alternatives such as PET, bag and box cans or kegs might be more suitable.

Peter, I have many questions for you on this, but first and foremost, maybe let's start with a bit of an overview of the key considerations behind packaging decisions.

Because companies are trying to balance all sorts of things like regulation, sustainability, consumer preferences, availability, cost, and so on.

That's a lot of things to be thinking about.

How are companies shaping their packaging strategy and how do they really know what to prioritize?

Well, I think to answer that question is exactly why we've been doing the work.

there's a lot of things to think through when it comes to packaging.

And I guess our starting point was to say, well, let's get together a solid evidence base to say what actually the facts are and what the various issues are that need to be considered when making a decision around sustainable packaging.

The start point was when we saw someone had brought out a new plastic bottle, PET bottle, and we say this was more sustainable because it had a lower carbon footprint.

Now, of course, that's true.

The plastic bottle has a lower carbon footprint than a glass bottle does.

However, unless you have that plastic bottle in a chain of custody where it will get recycled, then fine, you might not have a, from a sustainability perspective, you might not have the carbon challenge, but you will have a plastics pollution or landfill challenge.

So the question becomes, you know, how do you balance all those things together? And that's really what the research has been looking at.

As is often the case with these situations, that the more you dig in, the more you discover you didn't know what I suppose one might call the LCA, life cycle analysis factors.

So things like carbon, things like pollution, all of those factors.

are actually only one set of a wider range of issues that need to be taken into account.

Others are to do with the degree to which a pack can actually store wine safely and in good condition, because obviously wine can react with some packaging types.

So there's all those wine quality and health factors as well.

There are a lot of wider factors as well.

You've highlighted one of them with regulation.

And we know from our own work with the Bottleweight Accord that the EPR in the UK and will be coming in in Europe from now because PPWR came into effect last week in some states in the US and Australia.

You're going to be seeing EPR increasingly driving the financials of packaging.

So that's obviously needs to be taken into account.