Winner – Diageo for Baileys aluminium bottle
Much as the use of aluminium bottles for spirits is becoming less of a novelty with every passing year, Diageo’s trial this year of the packaging option for one of its major brands was the judge’s pick for this award.
Between March and June, the global travel retail channel was the home for around 30,000 units of the group’s B Corp-certified Baileys brand in aluminium. Made of 100% recycled aluminium, each bottle of the cream liqueur also featured a cap made of the same material, albeit virgin rather than recycled, with a plastic thread that burns off in the recycled process. Weighing in at 85g per 70cl bottle, the pack is almost 19% lighter than its glass equivalent and, of courses, using much less energy to produce in the first place.
“The material can be infinitely recycled with no reduction in quality through each cycle of processing – the new bottle offers improved recyclability compared to the traditional glass option. Our analysis … says that the aluminium format has an expected 44% carbon reduction versus its glass equivalent.”
It wasn’t as much the trial that caught the eye, however, as it was the findings. Post-purchase research by Diageo’s GTR division found that 72.5% of shoppers preferring the aluminium version to Baileys’ glass bottle. “This has continued beyond the trial,” according to Diageo. “Sales of the aluminium bottle currently making up more than a tenth (12.4%) of the overall sales of Baileys bottles at Amsterdam Schiphol, Frankfurt and Copenhagen international airports.”
The trial has also resulted in approaches from the likes of EasyJet and Virgin Atlantic about stocking the packs as part of their in-flight offerings.
Our judges said: “With almost 75% of the brand’s shoppers saying they prefer the 100% recycled aluminium pack to the original glass, this is a valuable lesson for the beverage alcohol industry to heed.”
