As managing editor of Did you know that the French wine industry is experience a shortage of glass bottles -- and at least one winery is investigating using PET instead? That's the story from decanter.com, the Web site for Decanter, a monthly magazine based in Haywards Heath, England.
"If supply difficulties persist, and prices increase, we could imagine replacing glass bottles with PET ones," Franck Crouzet, Castel Group's communications director, told the magazine.
Asked about the practicalities of switching from glass to PET bottles Crouzet said Castel, which also produces bottled water and beer, was already equipped with the necessary machinery and only needed to know French consumers would accept PET bottles.The advantages of PET bottles have recently been outlined to Castel in a document presented to the company in November 2007. Included are reduced transport, storage and breakages costs, as well ease of recycling.
With all the talk over the past decade years of PET getting a bigger share of the beer market, wouldn't it be amusing if plastic ended up winning over the French wine market first?
Comments (1)
I was passing through one of the Paris airports many years ago and there were some wine in plastic bottles lying loose in a container being offered at a knock-down price.
The reason soon became clear. The bottle base was so swollen that the bottles would not even stand up.
That development was obviously before its time. I do not think PET was involved and of course, there was not so much experience with plastic bottles in those days - not to mention facing conservative attitudes of many wine connoiseurs.
But I also remember the chairman of the association of Bavarian beer producers saying that beer would never get bottled in plastic and look what started to happen there, even in Germany, with help from a change in the packaging deposit system making life difficult for beer in metal cans.
Try this for more recent development on wine in plastic bottles:
http://www.prw.com/homePBP_NADetail_UP.aspx?ID_Site=818&ID_Article=17404
Posted by David Vink | December 12, 2007 7:13 AM
Posted on December 12, 2007 07:13