South Africa’s Eco Flat Wine Bottle Gains Global Attention With Airline Export Deal

You may simply have stumbled upon South Africa’s first ‘Eco-Flat’ wine bottle, currently already winging it overseas on a major international airline carrier.

Manufactured by Cape Town-based Polypet, the Eco-Flat bottle looks like it was sat on by Eben Etzebeth, but somehow survived. It is just 42mm ‘thin’, and over 80% lighter than its glass bottle equivalent. It also weighs just 63g compared with 400g of a glass bottle.

The 750 ml bottle innovation will be on display at next week’s Western Cape Economy Innovation Awards.

Launched late last year, the Eco-Flat has already made significant inroads into the overseas market, including a deal with Qatar Airways. The project also involves Stellenbosch Vineyards.

“A lot of local guys are saying they don’t know if the local market is ready for it, but there is definitely already a market to a degree,” says Roger Kerr from Polyoak Packaging. “The bulk of the market is for those wanting to get into the export game -- that is where the pull is mainly coming from.”

He says the lightweight bottle makes it more economical, requiring less packaging, storing space, and less transport-associated costs. “You can imagine the benefits for the airlines of being able to pack more wine into the drink cart,” Kerr says, adding that the bottle contained 25% recycled plastic.

A key obstacle was consumer perception that a flatter bottle may hold less volume, a perception partly mitigated by the larger front size impression. The shape is 40% more space efficient per pallet than glass.

Initial concerns that consumers may reject plastic bottles as ‘cheap’ turned out to be largely unfounded; market research indicates that younger buyers are more open-minded about product innovation, and more inclined to see the potential benefits.

Currently the product is aimed at the R80-R150 ‘mid-tier’ wine market.

Polyoak Packaging was among last year’s winners of the Western Cape Economy Innovation Awards, recognised for producing an Africa-first multilayer polypropylene (PP) bucket.