French winemaker Labouré-Roi is at Hamburg's World Travel Catering and Onboard Services Expo exhibiting its lightweight plastic wine bottles on stand 1E39.
Explaining just how much weight is saved by using its PET multilayer bottles, supply chain manager Jean-Noël Christe explains that while an empty glass, 750ml wine bottle weighs around 700g, the PET multilayer weighs only 25gs.
He says the screw-top plastic bottles were initially developed to transport the brand's Beaujolais Nouveau wine by air freight to its Japanese customers and saved 10kg in weight per case of 12 bottles.
Supplying its wines to a wide range of airline customers including All Nippon Airways, Air France, British Airways, Emirates and Lufthansa, Labouré-Roi also makes quarter size plastic bottles for economy class.
While based in the famous Nuits-Saint-Georges winemaking area of Burgundy, the company is also able to supply wines from other French wine regions such as the Rhone valley.
Looking to meet wine buyers from airlines and Catering companies at the show, Christe says Labouré-Roi could potentially put some of its Chablis or Pouilly Fuissé in plastic bottles, but would not do so for its more prestigious wines.
We will never ever, put Gevrey-Chambertin or Meursault in plastic bottles," he says.
Source: Flight Daily News
