Constellation Europe packs ‘keep wine fresh’

Wine producer Constellation Europe has designed a new large-format packaging solution with packaging group Drink Works.

The consultancy, which is a retained group, began working on the project in April 2008.

Fresh Case, which keeps wine fresh ‘for up to six weeks’, will replace 3-litre wine boxes with a new 2.25-litre box that can be manipulated differently depending if its filled with red or white wine.

David Cunningham, vice president of business development at Constellation Europe, says the white will be stored horizontally ‘to make it more fridge friendly’, and red will be stored vertically on counter tops.

The new packaging, which uses cardboard on the outside and foil on the inside, holds the equivalent of three bottles and will retail at £19.99 when Hardys Nottage Hill launches on 1 November.

Constellation Europe says the bag-in-box sector accounts for £300m of UK sales a year and £1bn in Nordic markets.

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  • Karl Schmid November 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

    That all sounds good but the question that is in the foreground of my thoughts is how environmentally friendly is this type of packaging.what type of resources are being used up and are they renewable.
    The bane of any designer should be seeing their packaging filling landfill sites.

  • Sarah Belizaire-Butler November 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

    Hi Karl,

    Thanks for your comments. I’m working on the launch of FreshCase and can confirm that FreshCase is environmentally friendly.

    FreshCase is made up of a foil bag interior, a high grade card body and injection moulded plastic parts – all of which are fully recyclable.

    Compared to three glass bottles, a FreshCase pack is 70% lighter and takes up 30% less space, making a huge reduction in the energy needed to transport it.

    One point I would make is that FreshCase is not designed to replace the traditional 3 litre Bag in Box, but attract a new type of consumer to the larger format category.

  • Karl Barber November 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

    The point regarding designing any packaging today is surely about adpoting the 3 basic rules of Reduce, Recylce and Re-Use.

    Although the components of any design like this may be individually recylclable it is how the materials are actually disposed of by the end user that must be at the forefront of any new idea. Will you or I seperate the foil bag, plastic components and card before putting them into our waste? I doubt it. At least there are many opportunties to dispose of glass waste at most supermarkets via their recycling points. So it is about intereacting with the public to ensure that it is easy to recycle and this should drive packaging design concepts wherever possible.

    Of course other arguments come into play regarding manufacturing and the energy consumption required to make glass bottles is no doubt high. However putting together a packaging solution requiring multiple materials may also have not only high energy consumption during manufacturing but also require the use of several logistics companies to bring all components to the final destination.

    While its refreshing to see companies innovate it is sometimes too easy to label a product environmentally friendly when there is so much more to the argument than simply using recyclable materials.

  • Sarah Belizaire-Butler November 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

    To see FreshCase in action, check out this demo video:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmDRY3xqpzw

  • sharon adams November 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

    How do we find more info about this product. I have googled it and draw a blank

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