French brand Veuve Clicquot is now using its own grape skins to make its champagne cartons.
The skins are an organic byproduct of its own winemaking process, and are used to box up the Naturally Clicquot champagne range.
In recent years, the consumer packaged goods community has sought to embrace new feedstocks to replace petroleum-based plastics and virgin paper fibre.
Sugarcane, corn, mushroom roots, limestone, potato starch, recycled jute sacks, and even sheeps' wool are among some of the materials currently being used in packaging.
Veuve Clicquot has already experimented with potato starch, but 'version 3.0' of its packaging, which uses the grape skins, is its latest idea.
The material for version 3.0 is produced for Veuve Clicquot by Favini, an Italian company which manufactures agro-industrial waste-based paper.
Favini’s Crush line of eco-friendly papers is made in part from the residue of fruits and nuts such as oranges, kiwis, cherries, almonds, hazelnuts, and coffee.
According to Favini, grape residuals have a high content of cellulose and lignin, which helps in the linking of cellulose fibers in the papermaking process.
The carton, which holds a bottle of Veuve Clicquot’s Brut Yellow Label champagne, is UV-litho printed by DS Smith with solvent-free inks.
The trademark Veuve Clicquot yellow label is then applied to the carton with a sugarcane-based adhesive.
With four fresh designs for each of its four sides, the rectangular packages can be lined up to combine their shapes and the grape illustrations, or display a sketch of the bottle inside.
Naturally Clicquot 3 is currently available in Australia.
Watch a video on Naturally Clicquot 3:
