Sales of box wines growing significantly, says A.C. Nielsen

By David Bellm -- Packaging Digest, 8/7/2008 2:10:00 PM

Box wines continue to gain ground against bottles, with statistics pointing to strong gains in sales last year. Experts say that the stigma associated with the category is steadily fading, even among somewhat premium wines.

According to U.S. newspaper The Record, box wines are only about 1 percent of overall wine sales, but the paper notes that A.C. Nielsen observed a 41 percent growth in sales for the category in the last year.

Attitudes toward box wines are clearly changing, as the category branches out to include a new group of wines called, “premium bag-in-box,” some of which sell for over $20.00.

While the gains are largely on account of rising quality, the basic bag-in-box package has a number of significant advantages over bottles. For one thing, you can’t really break a box of wine. This makes the bag-in-box format a winner over bottles any time a wine is expected to be served in a potentially harsh environment, such as hiking, picnics, or at the beach.

A bag-in-box wine will also keep longer. The wine isn’t exposed to air as much as it would be with an uncorked bottle.

Perhaps most important are the environmental advantages that box wines offer. According to The Record, Wine Group of San Francisco says boxes reduce landfill waste by 85 percent and lower carbon emissions by 55 percent compared to bottles. And the lighter weight boxes require less fuel to ship.

All those things said, it’s going to be hard for box wines to mimic a glass wine bottle’s “clink,” or the feel of its neck when pouring from it – subtle but important elements of the wine experience for many.

Photo by Marcus Buster; Copyright creative commons with attribution

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