Sustainability credentials of different closure types
It’s more than a decade since the WWF and the cork industry tried using the endangered Iberian lynx to emote consumers into using cork stoppers in preference to rapidly emerging synthetic and screwcap options. Since then, sustainability performance has become a key business indicator, and environmental sustainability (along with economic and social sustainability) is increasingly regarded as an essential part of a product’s passport to business. Where are the different closure options at?
Are we reaching closure on the closure debate?
Does a declining prevalence of media critical of TCA/TBA levels and of reduction and oxidation issues suggest that we’re nearly there on the closure debate? Or maybe that we’re more accepting of, or even inured to, complacent about, the levels of these faults? Has industry become complacent?
Closures – research and innovation
There’s a lot going on in the closure world, though it may be some time before we get to hear about some of it. TCA et al. seems to be hanging around in the corner, or even, dare one suggest, drifting off in a state of ennui. OTR is the bigger fish these days. And sustainability issues provide more innovative excitement than anything to do with TCA.
Closure trends
Nomacorc are the second largest closure manufacturer in the world, after cork stopper producer Amorim, selling a projected 2.4 billion units in 2011, but the synthetic category has experienced significant consolidation in the last couple of years. Will synthetic closures be squeezed out by cork and screwcap?
DO + HO = TPO (the new equation for successful bottling)
Forget closure OTR (oxygen transmission rate) for the moment. In closing up a wine bottle, TPO (total package oxygen) is where the TLAs (three letter acronyms) are at, and the bottling operation is the bigger oxygen issue by far.
