There is room for innovation in the manufacturing, storing and marketing of wine products – areas where packaging plays a major role.

Innovative packaging has become necessary because consumers today are smart. They are exposed to technology every day and they understand the world is innovating. Why should this be any different for wine?

Cost, however, always factors into the equation. Looking at packaging in South Africa, we asked the experts at the Institute of Packaging (IPSA) Wine Info Day to give us the low-down on trends, innovation, quality, costeffectiveness and the value created through packaging.

For Rian Moore, the Collotype CEO, packaging is close to ‘everything’: “Packaging is more important than ever, whether it is designed to increase convenience or improve connectivity to the digital marketplace. Packaging gives a definite competitive advantage as first impressions are so crucially important.”

What’s trending?

Innovative companies such as AstraPouch, the exclusive manufacturer of AstroPaq and AstroMini pouches and AstroBag BIB bags and the cutting-edge leaders of soft-packaging solutions for the wine and spirits industry, have come up with some distinctive designs. These pouches are easy to carry and one can enjoy the product on the go. Their characteristic design helps beverages cool faster, and the nozzle allows for smarter dispensing and a longer shelf life.

Says Charles Muller, executive director of Packaging SA and Plastics & Packaging Services, on aha trends in packaging: “There have been a number of interesting developments to replace glass bottles over the last few years. These include PET (plastic) bottles containing oxygenscavenging systems, cans, Tetra Paks, single serve packs, and much more. I think, however, that the most exciting development has been the progress of highly decorated standup pouches (www.astrapouch.com). Incidentally, this packaging concept was developed in South Africa!”

Neville Carew, MD of Origin Wines, agrees: “Consumers expect a lot more from packaging these days. Especially young consumers want to impress their friends with an attractive pack or bottle. Consumers like packaging they can personalise or interact with (thanks to the Coke names campaign). Consumers know that they can go to Google for history and tasting notes; they expect instant engagement from the pack. For the new millennials the conventional packaging is outdated. Now it is all about interaction and active communication, for instance with labels that ‘connect’ to the consumers, rather than just state eclectic facts, which are not of real meaning and interest to them.

“In terms of innovative packaging, it’s all about personalised packs, sustainable packs and reusable packs. It’s easy to forget that we cannot sell wine only to existing wine consumers. We need to lure new consumers away from spirits, mixers, RTDs (ready to drink) and ciders. Those beverages are a lot less tied to tradition and much more interesting on the shelf. Wine needs to compete with that. You need to do whatever you can to get the consumer to take your product off the shelf once. After that, the wine has to help with the repeat sell. As the first buy is done with the eyes within a mere couple of seconds, standing out on the shelf is essential to avoid gathering dust.”

Challenges ahead 

Although everyone agreed that innovation was right up there in importance, the cost factor, however, seems to throw things into disarray. “Innovating costeffectively through packaging is a problem,” says Muller. “There are just too many different Stock Keeping Units (SKUs). There are literally hundreds of shapes, colours, sizes, closure configurations, et cetera. Without increased standardisation of the primary pack we’ll never get the economies of scale required. Producers can get really innovative with the labels.

“Our packaging in SA is generally up to world standard and compares favourably with what is found elsewhere. The cost of our packaging may, however, be slightly higher than in some parts of the world and this can, inter alia, be attributed to the high cost of borrowing capital and [lack of ] economies of scale. This, in turn, results in uncompetitive technology investments to deal with multiple short runs, lack of raw-material and packaging-supplier options, poor productivity and lack of skills and, in many cases, aggressive shareholder financial expectations.”

The CEO at Breërivier Bottling, Livingstone Stanley, agrees that innovation is usually accompanied by high input/development costs. This, in his view, is a limiting aspect. “South African packaging is on a par with international trends, or at least we have the capability to compete on the global market. To save costs in the short term it is probably sensible to see how we can standardise certain packaging components without compromising brand identity. A concerted effort between packaging material manufacturers, producers and bottling partners is required to identify possible opportunities in order to combine cost-effective standardisation with brand requirements.”

Johan Visser, GM of Nampak R&D, believes another challenge in achieving innovation is openness: “We should listen to the consumers, what they want, what they can see is functional and think will work. Africa is quite different to the rest of the world. We have our own challenges and conditions we operate under. I also believe we have many entrepreneurs in South Africa who are waiting for an opportunity to show their capabilities. Never stop innovating. You need to be ahead of the market and your competitors.”

Visser believes cutting costs is tough: “Downgauging (to make materials thinner) on all packaging materials is a reality and finding the ultimate construction is challenging. Exceeding the ’point of no return’ can be costly. There is a noticeable movement of conventional products packed in glass or cans to flexible materials. Smaller (portion packs) are also increasing. Overall quality of locally manufactured packaging is good and very much on a par with international packaging, but in certain cases we have to overengineer our packaging to cope with local conditions as far as, for instance, climate and distribution channels are concerned.”

For Moore it is all about the consumer. “By making sure producers have an excellent understanding of the requirements of their customers and the requirements of the end-user, costeffective packaging is possible.”

Key take-home messages 

“We have a world-class industry – we just need some refinement, particularly around the points listed.” – Charles Muller, Packsa.

“We create value through the high standards of our packaging. We can compete with the best of the rest of the world. We need to remember that the vast majority of consumers are not as knowledgeable about wine as we would like them to be. We need to enhance the product through sustainably sourced, truly South African packaging.” – Neville Carew, MD Origin Wines.

“The packaging field in South Africa is very competitive, including imports (of questionable quality sometimes). Therefore innovation and speed to market are very important. I would like to see more active and smart packaging being introduced, as that is available. Cost will be a factor, but, again, we need to be innovative and make it affordable.” – Johan Visser, GM, Nampak R&D.

“Being part of a global organisation, I can safely say that our packaging industry is globally competitive.” – Rian Moore, CEO Collotype.

“South African manufacturers can, without doubt, compete with their international counterparts in terms of quality and innovation. The key challenge is on the cost side, to ensure that we accommodate wine producers (big and small) to make their cost structures competitive.” – Livingstone Stanley, CEO, Breërivier Bottling.