Glass Reimagined: Towards a Carbon-Free Wine Packaging Era    Every consumer goods manufacturer has a roadmap to environmentally friendly stewardship, with measurable goals for reducing carbon emissions, using sustainable resources and minimizing waste. With somewhere between 23% and 29% of a winery’s carbon footprint coming from the glass bottle, the challenge for the wine industry is to make the venerable glass bottle more sustainable considering that according to the latest EcoFocus® consumer trend survey, 85 % of American grocery shoppers over the age of 21 choose to buy wine in glass. The Core Value of Recycling    Recycling glass bottles is core to a circular packaging economy since recycled bottles are crushed and cleaned to produce cullet, which goes back into the glass furnace to make new bottles. Using this recycled cullet reduces the natural resources and energy needed to produce glass. In fact, increasing cullet to 55% reduces the use

Afternoon Brief, September 12th

The California Bottle Bill: 8 Important Takeaways: One of the biggest changes in the California wine industry since the end of Prohibition begins on Jan. 1, 2024, and it looks like many of the state’s producers either don’t know about it or aren’t prepared for it — or both...

Afternoon Brief, December 23rd

Wine Shipping on SCOTUS Agenda Again: Will the Supreme Court finally make a definitive judgment on interstate shipping next year?...

Afternoon Brief, June 20th

Cal/OSHA Safety Board Denies Monarch Tractor Petition to Modify Regulations Regarding Autonomous Tractor Use: Current California safety regulations under the California Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) written in the 1970s require a human operator to be stationed at the vehicular controls for all self-propelled tractors used in agricultural operations, thus presenting a regulatory roadblock to the use of autonomous, driver optional tractors that are being developed, marketed and trialed for use in California's vineyards and farmlands...