Cutting both costs and carbon emissions, British supermarket Waitrose shipped its new range of ‘Virtue’ wines from Chile in 24,000 liter flexitanks and bottled them in the UK. One tank equals 32,000 bottles—or 16 tons of glass—that no longer need to be shipped. In addition, the bottles used are lightweight and made of 60% recycled material.
Besides reducing carbon emissions, this shipping and distribution method lowers end-to-end production costs by up to 40%. Waitrose claims to be sharing these cost reductions with customers, charging GBP 3.99 per bottle. Currently on offer are a Merlot/Cabernet Sauvignon and a Sauvignon/Chardonnay, both from Chile. They’ll be joined by two Californian wines later this season, and Waitrose is looking to further expand the method to other countries it imports wine from.
A green innovation that saves money for both retailers and consumers? Producers and retailers: it’s time to get virtuous ;-)
Website: www.waitrose.com
Contact: www.waitrose.com/footer/contactus.aspx
Spotted by: Maria Dahl Jorgensen
UK bottling has been done for many years - this isn't a new trend. This article looks and reads more like a company press release
Hi Robert,
Thanks for your comment! When we were researching the piece, we didn't find any similar examples. So maybe it's time for the others to be a more vocal about the environmental benefits of their efforts ;-)
Maria,
I worked on a group project in grad school around this subject. Thanks for reporting on this update. Even if some importers are going this route (and its the first I have heard of it as well, can Robert show us some examples?) it would be wonderful to scale up this type of carbon reducing operations.
On my way to Waitrose now.
Maura