Beauty and brand recognition wrapped into a lighter wine bottle. That’s the challenge Boisset Group presented O-I Glass with its signature Bonpas wine bottles.
Boisset Group, the fifth largest French wine producer, wanted a lighter weight version of its signature Bonpas bottles. For O-I, that meant shaving at least 100 grams off the existing bottle while keeping the design. Working closely with the customer, O-I’s plant in Labégude, France, used its know-how to quickly carry out a number of tests to find the right approach. The new engraved Bonpas bottle is extraordinarily lightweight at 410 grams.
“Since we started the ‘light engraved’ adventure with Maison Gabriel Meffre, wine producer in the south of France, now part of the Boisset Group, we developed five of these bottles,” Davy Salanon, Sector Manager at Alsace / Burgundy says. “It’s a win-win situation: Our customer satisfies its market, and O-I develops its know-how in eco-design. Indeed, it is 110 grams of glass that we save with each bottle.”
New, high quality machines will help the plant keep up the pace for the client, who produces 60 million bottles a year, 70 to 80% of which are for export. While modernizing the plant’s lines has allowed for more in-depth inspection of the ring, bottom and engravings of these bottles, the line couldn’t have been restarted with such success without the know-how and commitment from the plant’s employees.
The Bonpas bottles, beautiful as ever, hit shelves in June 2020 – made with 20% less glass.