LCBO serves up eco-packaging innovations

Carey Toane -- Strategy, April 1, 2008 Tuesday
The Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) is launching its first
eco-awareness campaign this month. Envirochic highlights products with alternative packaging, such as Tetra Paks, PET, aluminum, reused glass and bag-in-a-box.
Among the innovations is an aluminum wine bottle from Burgundy vintner Mommessin which turns colour when the wine reaches its optimal temperature.
"They're fun, and quite fashionable," says LCBO VP marketing Nancy Cardinal, adding that the new packaging materials are also lightweight and unbreakable. "There are lots of things you can do in addition to being better for the environment."
LCBO president and CEO Bob Peter first issued a challenge to suppliers to develop packaging alternatives in 2005. That year, the LCBO introduced the first wine in a Tetra Pak, French Rabbit. The next year saw the first wine in a PET bottle. Now the LCBO carries over 200 products in those two materials.
"It's been quite incredible how the suppliers have stepped up to the plate and embraced the challenge," says Cardinal. "We couldn't have had this promotion really until this point, and there's just so much that we can showcase as part of Envirochic."
The challenge was part of a larger corporate goal to eliminate 10 million kg of waste per year; that target has since been surpassed by an additional four million kg annually. Annual sales of alternatively packaged products now exceed $120 million.