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Fetzer Vineyards Converts to Lightweight Glass Bottles

Brown-Forman Corporation's Fetzer Vineyards is converting its entire line of wines to lightweight glass bottles. Read More

(Updated on July 24, 2024)

Brown-Forman Corporation’s Fetzer Vineyards is converting its entire line of wines to lightweight glass bottles.

The new design eliminates the punt — the concave indentation on the bottom of bottles — and reduces the thickness of the glass. The changes result in an average annual decrease of 16 percent in glass usage, a reduction of some 2,100 tons, and a 14 percent drop in greenhouse gas emissions, an estimated 3,000 tons of C02e, according to Fetzer.

“Fetzer’s pioneering efforts at being the ‘Earth friendly wine’ is more than just an advertising tagline, it’s a philosophy that permeates everything we do at the winery,” Dr. Ann Thrupp, sustainability manager at Fetzer Wines, said in a statement “Lightweighting our bottle is a double-bottom line innovation — good for the environment and for efficient operations — that supports our goal of being a sustainable business.”

Using lighter weight bottles is one of the more recent eco-friendly moves broached by the wine industry, which has been considering packaging and supply chain changes to reduce use of materials, lighten shipping loads and pare transportation costs.

“Alternative packaging is being broadly looked at by the wine industry, but no one of our size has made this conversion,” Brown-Forman spokesman James Caudill told GreenBiz.

Fetzer, the flagship brand of one of the largest U.S. wine companies, quietly began its conversion last year. Fetzer also brought in consulting firm Best Foot Forward to conduct a full-circle evaluation of the new bottles from their manufacture and use to their end of life.

The conversion started with its 1.5L sizes as vintages changed and supplies of the glass formerly used were tapped out, according to Caudill.

“We didn’t announce it at that time because we wanted to complete the study to determine if our early goals were being met,” Caudill said in a statement provided to GreenBiz. “We’ll continue to convert over the next year or so. We anticipate having made the complete conversion within 12 to 15 months.”

In the conversion, the average weight of the bottles shifts from 20.3 ounces to 17 ounces, and all told will affect more than 23 million bottles of wine, the company said. It also said the reduction in the carbon footprint associated with glass bottles would be equivalent to planting 70,000 trees and growing them for 10 years, or by nearly tripling the trees in New York’s Central Park.

The company has pursued an eco-friendly strategy for more than two decades in efforts that have been recognized by environmental regulators.

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