Boxed wine is getting more popular – will we see the same happen for cold brew cartons?
From a morning cup of coffee to an evening glass of wine, sipping from a carton is becoming the trendiest way to enjoy a drink.
The wine industry is on a trajectory away from glass bottles and towards more efficient and sustainable paper packaging. Does the rising popularity of boxed wine forecast the same trend in cold brew cartons? I spoke with Erik Busch. Owner and Head Roaster of LongStory Coffee in Belleville, Illinois, to find out.
What is boxed wine and why is it popular?
Bag-in-box (BiB) wine grew 30% by volume between 2018 and 2023, suggesting the stigma around boxed wine is waning. Sales of Franzia, an American wine brand strongly associated with its affordable boxed wines, grew by 7.6% in 2020 as it led the top seven boxed wine brands to grow by 13.5% together.
Erik worked in the alcohol industry for a decade and in the last five years pivoted to specialty coffee. He saw boxed wine gaining popularity in the Midwest about 10 years ago.
“This was largely in part to the value of larger box vs. bottle, the ease of use, and the ability to take it with you to gatherings without worrying about breakage,” Erik recalls.
Erik noticed single-serve wine in cans and “juice box” cartons popping up five years later.
“The appeal of this type of packaging came from a change in consumer purchasing post-COVID. There was a bigger focus on moderating consumption and portability. Single serve boxed and canned wine solved this easily,” Erik says.
BiB wine and carton sales are booming due to the convenience of handling party-sized and single-serve cartons, new frontiers they offer in packaging design, and, perhaps most of all, increasing consumer awareness of the improved environmental footprint over bottles.
Wine packaging: A transition
The life cycle of wine bottles elucidates how glass is harder to recycle and less efficient to transport than BiB wine.
One life cycle assessment of the Italian wine market evaluated the environmental impacts in production, distribution, use, and end-of-life of wine and found that traditional single-use glass wine bottles often have the worst environmental performance compared to packaging alternatives (cartons, BiB, refillable glass bottle and plastic bottles).
The top two most environmentally sound packaging are the BiB and carton due to their composition, lower packaging weight, and greater packing efficiency in transport.
Let’s dive deeper into the life cycle assessment for bottled vs. boxed wine.
Production
Wine bottle production requires the glass to be smelted, a process that uses natural gas. Paper materials, on the other hand, can be processed using different sources of renewable energy.
Distribution
Shipping glass bottles is a fragile endeavor, requiring significant extra packaging waste like styrofoam or non-recyclable plastic that consumers never see. Additional greenhouse gas (GHG) is emitted when producing these materials, and shipping heavy boxes of glass bottles requires more fuel for transportation, which adds even more GHG to a wine bottle’s carbon footprint. On the other hand, boxes are sturdier and lighter.
The first large scale BiB brand, Franzia, cuts its transport GHG emissions in half by packing its trucks with twice as much wine compared to those carrying bottles.
Bota Box, a rising star for BiB and carton wine, increased its sales volume by 41.2% in 2020 – gaining nearly one million consumers. Bota Box claims that the carbon footprint for its boxed wine packaging is 84% less than that of glass packaging and creates 85% less landfill waste than glass.
Recycling & waste
The recyclability of glass does not stack up well against its competitors. When you throw a glass wine bottle in the recycling bin, only about 1/3 of the glass in the bottle is recycled.
That statistic only holds true if bottles are even recycled in the first place; As of 2018, the EPA found that less than 40% of glass wine and liquor bottles made it into the recycling bin. Paperboard and lining materials of boxed wine are easier to recycle for consumers and at the recycling facility.
Bag-in-box cold brew and cold brew cartons: Economic and environmentally friendly
Erik points to a large crossover between innovations in the alcohol and coffee industries, and foresees both BiB and carton formats from the wine industry trending in specialty coffee.
“Boxed cold brew has been around for years now, but it never caught on widespread,” Erik explains.
“Due to innovations made in the alcohol industry, these types of packaging are more approachable to cafes and roasters (due to lower minimum order quantities and more competitive pricing). With specialty coffee seeing customers focus on “local” (just like alcohol/craft beer), it seems like smaller roasters getting into this market would have a higher success.”
For the same reasons that boxed wine is booming, the BiB and carton format are advantageous for many ready-to-drink coffee products such as cold brew.
What are the advantages of BiB and carton cold brew?
There are several key advantages for these RTD formats over alternatives such as glass bottles and cans.
Firstly, convenience. Boxed cold brew is effortless to carry and store. Additionally, inside a bag-in-box, it’s effectively shielded from air and light, which preserves its aromas and flavours longer.
Cost effectiveness is another factor, too. By optimising space and weight throughout the production chain, BiB wine ends up being cheaper for consumers. Boxed cold brew is more efficient to produce and package, too, which keeps the consumer price lower than that of the glass bottle equivalent.
Reduced environmental footprint: Boxed cold brew is light and compact in transport, thus requiring lower fuel emissions. Plus, the paper box and sometimes the inner bag are recyclable.
Finally, branding and design. The full wrap packaging on single-serve cold brew cartons – as well as the large surface area of bag-in-box packaging – allows roasters to showcase more information while not sacrificing the design appeal.
Erik adds: “A fully wrapped package that showcases the roaster, coffee origins/sourcing, and maybe even a fun design will hit on key points for consumers.
“The packaging has to be eye-catching to get the consumer to pick it up, then informative and relatable to get the customer to purchase.”
Ultimately, the ease of recycling, plus a sturdy, aesthetic and affordable structure , makes cold brew cartons poised to follow boxed wine in a new standard for sustainable packaging.
This is why at Cold Brew Pak, we offer cold brew cartons that are constructed with responsibly sourced cardboard or corrugated board. In addition, our coatings are either water or plant-based for added sustainability, as well as low-VOC inks to minimise the environmental impact.
Similarly, our fully customisable bag-in-box products are constructed with a corrugated kraft paper box and a recyclable low-density polyethylene (LDPE) or compostable polylactic acid (PLA) bag.
Consumers can choose the most cost-effective size for their needs – such as with Cold Brew Pak’s individual cold brew cartons or 1L up to 20L BiB cold brew.
Interested in finding out more? Get in touch with our team for a custom quote today.
