Revolutionising delivery and improving engagement

The Drinks Report speaks to Santiago Navarro of Garçon Wines about its packaging concepts

Santiago Navarro Garçon Wines

Can you tell me a little bit about your brand, its history and why you started the company?

We set out to find a way to offer the ultimate in wine home-delivery convenience, wine ideal for the ‘Amazon generation’, and came up with a game-changing innovation that offers the potential to disrupt the way drinks are delivered into the home. Our innovative, full-sized, flat wine bottles look like the real deal but are light and strong enough to be sent by post and thin enough to be delivered through a letterbox. This seamless delivery into the home demonstrates outstanding convenience for consumers being able to receive their favourite tipple, hassle-free, at any point, without needing to be around and, therefore, our business is being acknowledged as revolutionising wine delivery and improving wine engagement, retailing and logistics.

How would you describe the current look and feel of the innovative packaging design? Is there a particular target audience that it looks to attract?

Our award-winning bottles are made of 100 per cent recycled PET to be light and strong enough to be sent by post. Our chosen material ensures our product looks beautiful on a dining table, addressing the emotional, works perfectly from a functional perspective, and importantly is sustainable from an environmental perspective. This is what has resulted in them winning an award, being featured in two global TV shows, gaining more than 115 pieces of press coverage in English alone, being listed in the collection of a museum for plastic packaging, and being used by several UK academic institutions as a packaging case study.

Our target audience is the ‘Amazon generation’, millennials who have an increased need for convenience and innovation.                                               

Looking forward to you speaking at Drinks Forum, can you guide me through the creative process at Garçon Wines? How do you begin creating a packaging concept?

The first stage to any creative process in a commercial setting is to identify a problem. For us at Garçon Wines, we wanted to send out wine cheaply and for it to be delivered seamlessly. In order to achieve this, we needed to be able to minimise costs by sending out our products by post and not courier. To achieve the aim of being delivered seamlessly, we needed to overcome the struggle of successful delivery when no one is home and, therefore, the only viable option is through the letterbox. We wanted to address a very clear problem that others have attempted to tackle. We discovered that previously others didn’t look at the full problem at hand and tried to get existing packing to fit the problem, but no matter how hard you try, it’s impossible to get a circular bottle through a rectangular letterbox. We managed this by thinking outside the box.

What will you be talking about at Packaging Innovations?

The headline of my talk is ‘Letterbox wine, vino through your letterbox’. I’ll be talking about our specific packaging innovation and how we identified the problem that has culminated from a change in generational ideals in purchasing and delivery. The existing packaging for wine isn’t fit for the ‘Amazon generation’ and I’m going to share how we’ve tried to follow in the footsteps of companies such as Amazon and Graze, by tackling the problem head on and generating global recognition for a more convenient and eco-friendly idea with commercial opportunity for generations to come.

Are there any trends that you’ve noticed in drinks packaging lately that you would like to incorporate into future looks for Garçon Wines? Is there anything that you’ll be looking out for at the Drinks Forum and Packaging Innovation?

There’s definitely a large focus being placed on being more eco-friendly and there’s greater awareness of the damage the pollution from plastic packaging litter is doing to our oceans and environment. This is why we make our bottles out of 100 per cent post-consumer recycled PET. Although eco-friendliness is important, and we treat it as paramount, sustainability across the whole supply chain is key and we take pride in the fact that, in our view, our wine bottles are the ‘greenest’ bottles on the market.

Another major trend is re-inventing packaging for different and more efficient uses. E.g. some bars now offer house wine and prosecco out of a barrel at a bar using a draught we best associate with beer. This is a lot more efficient than carrying around heavy, spatially inefficient round, glass bottles. In order for these innovations to work, the consumer has to adapt to recognise these concepts are better fit for purpose.

Although our flat bottles were originally designed to fit through a letterbox, it soon became apparent that there are a lot more uses for flat drinks bottles beyond letterbox delivery and, therefore, I’ll be speaking about the space and weight benefits our bottles can offer in a variety of industries.

Finally, is there anything in the pipeline for the brand? What can we look forward to seeing from you guys in 2019?

There are many exciting developments currently happening at Garçon Wines. We have new formats both shapes and sizes in the pipeline. We also own IP rights that span 35 countries and, therefore, we’re looking to develop and leverage these to expand into international markets.

 

15 August 2018