Is Standardization Possible For Winemakers?

For the past few weeks since our launch, OOM has been working with consumers, restaurants & winemakers to collect empty wine bottles for reuse. We’re incredibly lucky to have so many supporters in all aspects of the wine industry wanting to join our mission in eliminating single-use bottles. We’ve collected thousands of wine bottles in the past few weeks and are so excited to keep them all out of the landfill and conserve resources.

As our team has been working to supply salvaged wine bottles for winemakers at scale, we’re noticing two major challenges: 1) Variation of bottle shapes & sizes & 2) Labels.

Before we launched, we inherently knew these two factors would be the biggest challenges we’d face. Don’t get us wrong, there are many other things we had to figure out as well (i.e. sorting, sanitization of different shapes & sizes at scale, getting empty wine bottles back — just to name a few). We’ve cracked the code on how to solve those challenges, but it’s becoming apparent for reusable wine bottles to work at scale, changes need to be made industry wide.

1. Variation of Bottle Shapes & Sizes

Out of the thousands of bottles we’ve collected, we have hundreds of different bottle shapes and sizes. Let’s read that again — hundreds of different bottle shapes and sizes. Why is this happening? Let’s say even if it’s a dark burgundy bottle, since the bottles are sourced from different manufacturers, there are variations in neck height & width, overall bottle height, and slight color differences. Multiply that by the 5 major bottle shapes, the problem starts compounding. The variation even within a single shape makes it extremely difficult for large wine producers to take reusable wine bottles on an automated bottling line.

2. Labels

Labels used across winemakers vary widely. Some are coated with plastic lining to ensure the labels don’t fall off in ice buckets. Some have aluminum backing. Then there’s the issue of the adhesive used for those labels. Water soluble adhesive is great, otherwise it’s nearly impossible to get the bottle looking new.

Standardization?

Would it be possible for the industry to use standard shapes & sizes (perhaps max 4 SKUs — two dark, two clear)? If so, this would mean all bottles would have to be ordered from the same manufacturer for now or that a standard measurement be agreed upon for a single bottle shape that all manufacturers must follow to ensure consistency for automated bottling lines.

For labels, it would mean only purchasing labels that are:

1. Unlaminated white or kraft paper, removable labels or dissolvable labels with
2. Hot glue, cold glue or rubber-based pressure sensitive adhesive

For any winemakers that are interested in purchasing reuse wine bottles from OOM, we’re happy to consult/provide guidelines on best practices so we can get closer to eliminating single-use bottles.