Sustainable Packaging

Can Wine Packaging Be Sustainable / Barry Salt

August 15, 2021 Cory Connors Episode 17
Sustainable Packaging
Can Wine Packaging Be Sustainable / Barry Salt
Show Notes Transcript


https://ororapackagingsolutions.com/
How can wine packaging be sustainable?
Have you considered shipping wine in kegs?
The wine industry wants to be sustainable, how can we help?
https://www.linkedin.com/in/barry-salt-b385148/
barry.salt@landsberg.com 

Check out our sponsor Orora Packaging Solutions 
https://ororapackagingsolutions.com/

https://specright.com/ 
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1329820053/ref=as_sl_pc_qf_sp_asin_til?tag=corygat

https://www.linkedin.com/in/cory-connors/

I'm here to help you make your packaging more sustainable! Reach out today and I'll get back to you asap.

This podcast is an independent production and the podcast production is an original work of the author. All rights of ownership and reproduction are retained—copyright 2022.

Cory Connors:

Welcome to the sustainable packaging with Cory Connors today, I've got a very special guest, my very good friend, Mr. Barry Salt , who is the national director of wine packaging at Landsberg, Aurora. How are you today? Barry?

Barry Salt:

Fantastic. How are you?

Cory Connors:

Good. Thank you so much. You and I have worked together for a long time and you've been one of my mentors in packaging sustainably. And so I was really excited to have you on the show. Thank you. Can you tell us how you got into packaging and, and then sustainable packaging?

Barry Salt:

Well, I, you know, I got off the commercial fishing boats gosh, in the. No, the early nineties. And so like started with ironically packaging, janitorial supply company called fishermen supply. And and they gave me the territory of Sonoma Napa. So as I'm out there selling, I noticed that these wineries didn't have a good packaging source for their direct to consumer packaging. So I introduced that into fishermen supply and we started. Back then in the, in the early nineties, starting to supply wine shippers. Oh, wow. Yeah. So that's that's how I started. That's when I started and that's sort of way. You know, we started looking at sustainability because we were using styrofoam shippers. When we knew that that wasn't sustainable because they were selling toilet paper out there. Those that were recycled with wood chips in it. So we knew that that this was serious and this was going to be a subject. For now into the future.

Cory Connors:

That's interesting how it went from the fishing industry to, to the wine industry. Do you feel like that was the

Barry Salt:

transition? Well, you know, I was a restaurant guy and, and I was going to go back into the restaurant business and realize that that's just not what I wanted to do. Right. Isn't any money in it. There wasn't, you know, it was It was fun. I enjoyed it, but but I really needed to raise a family and I needed to make some money. So I got into sales. Wow. And then, and then into this packaging sales,

Cory Connors:

well, it's a great industry and it's like, most of us, once you get in, you don't get out. Yes. Yes. It's very specific. Yeah. So this is a question I'm asking all my guests and I'm very interested to hear your thoughts on it. Can packaging actually be sustainable?

Barry Salt:

That's a really good question because I mean, I guess you really have to define sustainable. And, and I guess sustainable would be something that you could keep doing over and over again without any adverse effects. So, so no I, it will never be completely sustainable. But we, you know, there are alternatives to actually making the packaging and using it over and over again. And that's really where I'm leaning towards is getting away from corrugated packaging, getting away from all this packaging and getting it into some kind of reusable shipper.'cause it's it. We can't just keep making more cardboard, more pulp. I mean, everybody is, is maxed out right now and inflation is hitting. So it is just, it is a time where we have to rethink of what we're doing and how we do it. Yeah.

Cory Connors:

Supply is short. Demand is skyrocketing. You're absolutely right. We're seeing it across all kinds of packages.

Barry Salt:

Yeah. And I think we discussed before, you know, the, the, the changes of the habits from going, you know to the, to the grocery store and to the department store on the weekends and picking up your 20, 30 items. And now those 2030 items are now shipped to you. It is not sustainable. We can not. Everything we buy can't come through the mail. We don't have enough trucks. We don't have enough boxes. We'd have, it's just, it's just really a crash course that we're on right now. And, and I guess, I guess if you, you make the package so expensive, you can't afford to buy it or ship it anymore. I guess that's where we're coming to. And then they'll start opening up brick and mortars again, and people will start driving to this. So I think that, you know, there is the, the end game here is not good. So we, we need to, we need to rethink what we do.

Cory Connors:

Yeah, I when you can't deliver each individual item to you and it's own separate packaging and, and that's not sustainable. I agree. So do we do some kind of a consolidated shipping? Do we do a retail store? Like, like you said, is there a milkman system where we're picking it or we're picking them up once a week or delivering. A whole scope of items. A very interesting idea. I agree. Yeah.

Barry Salt:

And I think, you know, w we, we talked earlier about the returnable shipper, right? And, and one of the problems with the returnable shipper is, is that, you know, everything goes out, you, you you know, FedEx or ups and, and they don't come and pick up that package. So the package has to be returned to U S P S. So that's what we're working on now is, is. How expensive can we make this thing? How many times could it be used and, and, and become, you know, a, an actual positive, right, right. So, you know, we're thinking, you know, is it 20 bucks? And we get four out of it, you know, then it's $5, which it costs about right now for a wine shipper or do we get 20 out of it and really dig into that, that, that cost savings and that. You know, using less packaging, you know, overall. So then these are the kinds of things that w that w you know, we are working on as a company, but there is lots of eyes the dot and T's to cross, and to make the return on the investment for the, you know, the wine or used to be, you know, Palatable. Very

Cory Connors:

good point. It must be a budget friendly as well as eco-friendly to be an actual solution.

Barry Salt:

Right? Yeah. And I think that in this case, it could be much less than what they're paying now. And so I think that this is a way to actually make more money at the same time, being more environmentally friendly and sustainable. And, and that's a win-win it could, packaging, isn't a, win-win, it's more expensive, good point. It is. It is, it takes more of it because it's less safe. So there's, there's a ton of stuff around it that, you know, like we, we came up with the Vericool this year, which was the, the paper packaging around, you know, around the. The potato starch or corn starch kind of planks. And that is a tremendous amount of work and labor making that. And the paper is Virgin paper that this is, this is, this is not, it's still way better than the Styrofoam, but it's not the final answer. Right. It's a good, it's a good interview. You know, it's like our bio foam is a good interim, but these are these, aren't the end all questions. These are just some of the, the, the stop gaps, the solutions that we're doing to, to you know, appease that the environmental Direction that we're going as a, as a, as a planet.

Cory Connors:

Really? Yeah. It's, it's, it's no longer a question of, do we need to do this? It's how fast can we do it? Right.

Barry Salt:

And exactly. And, and, and so, you know, and people have to make some sacrifice. And but what we gotta do is that people will only pay X amount of dollars for their two bottles of wine and the shipping and the packaging is way more expensive than the wine that you even put it inside it. So it, this is all upside down. So I, you know, like I said, I think eventually, you know, the, you know, Maybe not in my lifetime, but in the next five or 10 years, this thing, old things going to flip back to where it was, because that was the most logical and, and easiest and most efficient way to get your stuff from the store or from the manufacturer into your, you know, into your into your house. Yeah.

Cory Connors:

Yeah, I agree. And like you said, have a cart full of items, a literal cart, not, not an online cart that you pushed your vehicle and you've take them home. Yeah. Do you think the the wine industry as a whole is, is pushing to be more sustainable?

Barry Salt:

Absolutely. I mean, these are, these are essentially farmers, you know, from, from that standpoint now there's the big conglomerates, but the big conglomerates have. Have also you know, really looked at paying even a little bit more for the sustainable packaging. Right. Because they understand that if they can advertise that they do this, then their consumers are going to buy from them. So I don't know if it's from a moral standpoint, but certainly certainly it's from a from a standpoint that they it's in every conversation that we have. Right. So, so the, the, the wineries and our customer, their customer base is pushing them to not send these styrofoam containers and to, to, and all this thing. And, and the problem with it has in the, in the years past is the wineries can't afford to sit on their wine all summer long, anymore. Right. They used to be able to, and we had millions of millions of shipments here that were held for heat holds. And, and what I've been trying to unstick those heat holds by creating some some packaging to, you know, to, to ship during the summer, like

Cory Connors:

more aggressive cooling

Barry Salt:

system. The only thing that we've come up with and the, the one that actually works was so expensive and so big that people weren't buying it. So they would buy what we call the perception. Right. Which is, which is the styrofoam that we have now. That's probably three, eight inch thick, and it would probably only last 24 hours, but because it has a ice pack in it, it styrofoam and it reaches the doorstep with cool to the touch. The customer is. Right. It's happens 90% of the time, 10% of the time. It doesn't work, but they're willing to take that risk. So that's where we are right now is, you know, how much money can you spend and, and, and still keep your profits and still keep that customer. So holy grail is a very economical, cool, packed shipper. That's environmentally friendly that you can biodegrade, recycle. Or reuse. Cory Connors: Yeah. And maybe something similar to the veri cool but something that's easier, a little bit easier to set up maybe. Yeah. And I think, you know, if we get, if we go to a a returnable shipper, it's not going to be a recyclable type material, we'll use a, you know, a a PE kind of product that you can just reuse over and over and over and over again. And that will far out. I think that, you know, from a carbon footprint and a total carbon footprint, we will be well ahead of the curve.

Cory Connors:

And those are eventually recyclable as well. Right. They technically,

Barry Salt:

yeah. I mean, you, you, you, there, you can reuse that product re grind it and reuse it, right. If it, if, if it's recycled properly and as we come out with our program cause really the infancy of it. We'll figure that part out, you know, what do we do with it when we're done with it? You know, where do we take it? How is it is a reground reused which I know they can do at an ACH or anyway, Atlas foam. So so we'll but that that's sort of, you know, the thousand foot version of what we're looking at.

Cory Connors:

So, what do you think about shipping wine in kegs instead of glass bottles as a sustainable option? Well,

Barry Salt:

I, it's such a cool idea. So in Europe and then this is an article I read 15 years ago. You don't go. And a lot of places in Europe, you don't go by the store and get bottles of wine. In cases of wine, you have a keg that you put in the back of your pickup truck and you drive underneath to the winery and they have these filling stations, like a gas station. Wow. They fill these kegs up and then you just drive it home.

Cory Connors:

I didn't know that. Yeah, that's already,

Barry Salt:

that's been going hold on for a year. So there, there is a company here in Napa that, that sells kegs of wine, but it's more to restaurants and things like that. Not to the homes, but, but in Europe it's quite quite common to see a barrel in a person's living room. Right. So that's sorta how they do it. So if you're, you know, really good one, get a barrel, put it in your, put it in your house. You know, it's constant temperature of 70 degrees or whether it won't age the wine. Right. Right. And, and there you go, you got it. But I completely agree with that. You know, it, it kinda, you know, the marketing people may disagree with you and you know, all the people who make labels and bottles and all that, but absolutely right. If you're, if you're a wine drinker and you know, you're going to drink wine every night and you, you, you know, a good one. Bye bye.

Cory Connors:

And what like, like you said, what a cool thing to have in your house, you know? And especially if you host lots of events or gatherings yeah. I've seen those systems in restaurants fairly frequently where they have a cake and it comes out of a tap, right.

Barry Salt:

Yep. So that new thing, and it's great for restaurants, but you know, we just, we still have that mentality where we want to see the bottle and smell the cork and, and see the fancy label. And it's sort of a, a whole experience. Yep. You know, if you're owning a restaurant or something like that, you've got to create that experience without them seeing that bottle somehow. And I'm not sure how that works, whether it's on an iPad, you know, where like a lot of these wine men use it now on an iPad, so you can click on it and it can, they could give you a story, you know, it can just help you code, right? Yeah. They're on your menu. And now it's telling the story that way they don't see, need to see the bottle and smell the cork and, you know, do all those stacks.

Cory Connors:

Even better in my opinion than you know, labels are beautiful. Like, like you said, and bottles are even, even opening a bottle as an experience. But if the QR code could lead to a short video about the family and where the grapes were grown and, you know yeah. And I'm

Barry Salt:

starting to see that, you know, even on people's bottles now and label, so these Q codes and that, and I think that that's probably, you know, if they have. If they had iPads in these, in these restaurants and a lot of them are now and they take orders on them and do all that type of thing that you could actually interact. And just go here, you know, you click on this and it gives you the story about the wine and then off you go. But yeah. Yeah. But any kind of idea you can think of that to not to get away from the bottles and the screw caps and the good, I mean, Being a buyer for one of these place gotta be a nightmare. Right? Cause you've got it. You've got to, you've got the cork , the glass, the label, and in production, in the picking of the grapes and the aging of the grapes, everything has to come together, all, all that. It's a perfect time to put that altogether.

Cory Connors:

And what if, what if you harvest bumper crop and you have, you need extra this year, all of a sudden then yeah. Yeah.

Barry Salt:

And glasses, the shortage on glass is, is bizarre. People can't get glass, so they, they can't produce the wine. And then so they can't sell the wine and, and it's yeah, our, our supply chain is choked amazingly and, and we're dealing with best we can , but you know, we're not at a great fill rate and, and neither is anybody else, you know? So, I mean, these glass houses are. In, in the low sixes or, you know, 60% fill rates and things like that. That's amazing. Yeah, because you know, they've allocated the glass to them that they use last year. Right, but now they've grown 10%, 15%. Well, the glass plants don't have that capacity to bring on an extra 10 or 15%. So everybody's born from Peter to pay Paul and, and and it's just very, very frust, frustrated industry right now in the, in that room.

Cory Connors:

I see the same in the beer industry with cans they're, they're frustrated. They can't get cans

Barry Salt:

for the wine. People are using them. Now. That's

Cory Connors:

what I was going to say. Have you seen is that the new trend is

Barry Salt:

the trend in, you know, two 50 MLS, 3 55 IMLS and even the 3 75 them. Just like the Coke cans, the traditional Coke can there either one of those. So we were at a Ana an account the other day. I won't mention their name, but they, they had you know, canning line. Tetra Pak lines and bag in the box lines as well as their regular wine lines where it's right. So now they're actually this is the first winery I saw put all that into one, one building, but you know, there's lots of co-packers around here in Napa there that have the canned fillers and that type of thing. But there's not enough. Right. And like you said, there's not enough cans. And so what, and then that's the trend is single serve and which I think, which I think is awful. I just can't pay it's the trend because that's what, you know, the, the, the consumer wants, but it's a bad thing.

Cory Connors:

Right. It's easier to put a 12 ounce can in your backpack when you're hiking. I think that's kind of the idea, right? Like

Barry Salt:

you know, yeah. It it's, it's, it's convenience. It's not, it's not the right thing to do.

Cory Connors:

It's not the experience that we spoke of before.

Barry Salt:

It's it's like, it's like, you go, you buy orange juice for the house and you just go buy little 12 ounce bottles. He could buy 12. Right. One of the things that we've done at the house is we love sparkling water. So we used to buy cases of this stuff. So we bought one of those air, those Airstreams or whatever they are, and we get our water from Chester. Right. Or, you know, it's all beautiful water. And we, we ain't got sparkling water and, and we've saved just in our household, probably a case a week.

Cory Connors:

Okay. Right. And

Barry Salt:

so you take that times 52 weeks. I mean, just as alone by just buying that soda stream thing, save that amount of bottles.

Cory Connors:

I had another guest on the podcast that said soda stream was the first to do sustainable packaging. And I thought, wait a second. And then you think about it and you're exactly. That's what he's talking about. What you're just saying. You're eliminating packaging. That's yes. Making it at home.

Barry Salt:

Yeah. That's why I think this keg thing's a great idea. Or, or even just go fill up from a tank. Yeah. Go refill your balls. Right. I mean, it's, it's just, it's just crazy what we do. You just want to sit at home. Right. And, and no, it's, it's let's get out there. People use your electric bike, you know, whatever it takes, you know, if you don't want to buy gas, then, you know, buy electric car and do it that way.

Cory Connors:

Yeah.

Barry Salt:

I like that. Yeah.

Cory Connors:

It could even be like a delivery service, like used to get oil for your heat delivered to your house, you know shut to don't so mean could be, could deliver the wine.

Barry Salt:

Imagine if like an ice cream truck going down the road with all these spouts on the side of it. Yes.

Cory Connors:

Which, which vintage would you like today, sir? Well, thank you so much for being on the show, sir. What's the best way for us to get ahold of you?

Barry Salt:

You, you can get ahold of me at Barry.Salt@landsberg.com. Email. All right. And so it's Barry B a R Y and salt lake pepper. S a L T.

Cory Connors:

Perfect. Well, thank you again for being on the show. I'd like to thank our sponsor, Landsberg ORORA for their support and you and I both worked there. So this works out really well. And thanks again, Barry.

Barry Salt:

Appreciate it. If you're doing this, I think you're, you're doing the world a favor. Thank you, sir. All right. Cheers.