Bulk Wine Exports take a green turn

Transporting bulk wine in Spacekraft makes sense

Provided by:SBH Solutions

24/12/2007-

There is a part of the wine export market that has been looking for a best practice way to transport wine. Opportunities have emerged to use Australian wine to bulk up boutique wines in other countries.

While the traditional composite Schütz bottle-in-cage 1000 litre IBC has been adopted to transport this wine by some, increasingly others are finding that there are advantages of using a patented cardboard IBC from Spacekraft.

"Customers are waking up to the container’s insulating properties" says Tony Rowland, Product Manager for IBC Solutions. "These containers are made of eight-wall-thick corrugated which provides a lot of insulating dead-air space. Compared to drums and other bulk containers the SpaceKraft provides far better insulation to protect the quality of the wine against extreme heat or cold during transit."

Though only recently used in Australia for shipment of wine to France and Japan, Spacekraft has a long history in the wine sector. One example is Tomasello Wines. "We began using SpaceKraft corrugated bulk containers in 1999, when we began shipping bulk fruit wines to the Far East for private labeling," says Jack Tomasello, vice president of Tomasello Winery, in Hammonton, New Jersey. "The containers are 100 per cent recyclable and biodegradable, so they’re good for shipping to Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and other countries where environmental regulations are strict and container disposal can be costly."

Within the Australian context again, Tony Rowland mentions another important factor to consider. "Our wine regions are not always cheap to reach from a transportation perspective, so freighting of flat pack IBC to the filling destination can be more effective than shipping an empty bottle- in-cage IBC."

Basic Specifications of Spacekraft 1000 litreExport IBC

The container consists of three main components: an outer corrugated sleeve or shell, an inner 3 layer liner bag inside a corrugated cassette, and a corrugated overcap. There is also a weatherproofing plastic shroud.

The outer corrugated sleeve is manufactured under a patented process that continuously winds eight plies of 69# linerboard and 36# A-flute corrugated medium into a seamless shell that eliminates the manufacturer’s joint, staples or wood components.

SpaceKraft’s export container measures 112 cm long x 112 cm wide x 102 cm high.. It fits a 112 cm square pallet and is designed to provide optimum use in seagoing containers. It is supplied to the filler flat packed 12 units to a pallet, though smaller quantities can be purchased.