CO2 Friendly Wine
BULK = CO2 FRIENDLY
Through generations Taster Wine has supplied the Danish consumers with wine and spirits. The wine is bought from all over the world both in bottles and in an increasing amount also in bulk, i.e in liter for bottling in bottles or bag-in-boxes at our top modern and IFS Food certified bottling plant in Brøndby, not far from Copenhagen.
WHAT IS BULK?
Actually, bulk means ”without packaging and in large quantities”. That is why we call it bulk wine when we transport the wine in liter.
Bulk wine is transported either in a road tanker as we know it from e.g. milk, or in flexi bags. Commonly said, a flexi bag is an oversized bag-in-box-bag placed in an ordinary 20” shipping container. The flexi bag contains 24,000 liter of wine and when the container reaches the destination and the bag has been emptied, it is removed, and you can immediately use the container for other goods.
EFFICIENT AND CO2 FRIENDLY
As Danish and European wine lovers ”discovered” wine from overseas countries, the import of these wines increased significantly.
At the same time, the bag-in-box wine gained grounds especially with the Scandinavians and the advantages of purchasing wine in bulk for bottling close to the consumer became even more obvious.
The first incentive was the economy, as you saved money by not transporting packaging, but other advantages of bulk wine appeared such as a prolonged shelf life, both in the stores and at home. During the past years, the reduction of CO2 emission has also become a strong argument for importing wine in bulk. Transporting wine in bulk, from the country of origin to bottling in Denmark, reduces the CO2 emission by 30% to 50%.
From the beginning, Taster Wine has been an active partner in this development and in recognizing not only the financial advantages of transporting wine in bulk but also that it ensures the quality of the wine and reduces the environmental impact, thus bulk wine forms an increasing part of our business.
HOW DO I KNOW IF MY WINE HAS BEEN TRANSPORTED / BOTTLED IN A CO2 FRIENDLY WAY?
As a private person who wants to act in an environmentally conscious way, it is often hard to know what to do on a daily basis to reduce your CO2 footprint. In the following a few tips on how to estimate the CO2 impact of the wine.
Check the label to see the bottling place. Is the wine from an oversea country and Taster Wine is listed as bottler (either by name or VAT no. DK61092888) the wine has definitely been sent in bulk to Denmark.
Taster Wine wants to make the big CO2 reduction of bulk wine even more visible compared to buying wine bottled in e.g. Australia or Chile. Therefore, we have introduced a sticker with the purpose of making it easy for the consumers to decode if the wine has been purchased using the most CO2 friendly method.
Therefore we put on the sticker ”CO2 FRIENDLY WINE” on the wine or it will be mentioned in the wine description.
In addition hereto, from January 1st 2020, Taster Wine decided that all electricity used in our bottling plant must derive from certified ”green” electricity from sustainable energy sources - see certificate here.
DANISH JOBS
Besides the financial and environmental advantages, there is another significant advantage of bulk wine. When we import bulk wine and bottle the wine in Denmark, we also create jobs in Denmark.
SOME FIGURES
Below, we present the standardized calculations that form the base of the ”CO2 FRIENDLY Wine” sticker.
Below calculation is made compared to bottling in bottles - when bottling in BIB, the advantage is reduced by approximately 14% - 18% depending on the country of origin.
The calculation presupposes that the emission of CO2 is 1:1 whether it happens in the country of origin or in our bottling plant in Denmark (even though we as of January 1. 2020 transferred to 100% ”green” electricity).
The transport of empty bottles from one of our primary suppliers of new bottles situated in Germany for our bottling plant is included in the calculation of the CO2 impact when buying in bulk (the equivalent emission is not included in the CO2 impact when buying bottled wine. In this case, only CO2 related to the transport of the bottled wine | In addition, it has not been taken into consideration that we through Dansk Flaskegenbrug seek to use recycled bottles as much as possible. In 2019 recycled bottles made up approximately 25% of our needs).
Production, use and disposal of flexi bags for transporting wine in bulk is included in the calculation of the CO2 impact of bulk.
The transport of bottled wine is calculated based on a freight of a standard bordeaux bottle packed on pallets in a 40’ container = 18.000 bottles.
Sources: Sea transport: EcoTransIT World | Flexi-bag: J.F. Hillebrand | Bottle transport: Nordic Transport Group.
- find documentation here.
NOTES:
The reason why the advantage from Mendoza, Argentina, is significantly lower than from other origins, is the relatively long road transport from the wine area around Mendoza to the harbor.
The percentage of wine we can bottle in recycled bottles has unfortunately decreased through the past few years. One of the reasons is an increase in the use of bottles with screw cap as the closure is often damaged in connection with collecting the bottles. Many consumers wrongly believe that, for the sake of the environment, they should remove the screw cap and throw the empty bottle in the container without the screw cap. This misunderstanding is the main reason why many bottles with screw cap cannot be recycled and instead have to be crushed and made into new bottles, thus using more energy. The companies that collect the bottles are fully capable of removing the screw caps, making sure that the bottles can be recycled. So as a consumer, if you wish to contribute to recycling bottles with screw cap, please make sure to put on the screw cap once the bottle is empty.
In connection with our purchases of new bottles from our two main suppliers with production in our neighboring countries, Sweden and Germany, we can inform you that below bottle types, in percentages, are used in their production of new bottles:
Green/Olive glass: 80 - 93%
White glass: 60 - 85%
For further information on Taster Wines environmental and societal actions, kindly see our annual CSR reports.
- see reports here.
The calculation of the proportional reduction of CO2 has been validated and evaluated accurate by the revision of BDO (see declaration under documentation) However, we cannot guarantee the accuracy or absolute correctness as the calculations are based on figures from informed sources and suppliers. Any responsibility for the factors used and the correctness of the calculation methods of the sources is foreclosed.
