New Zealand comes to PACKWINE with a focus on regional sustainability

What does it mean for the grape and wine sector to be sustainable on a regional level?

One of the speakers at the upcoming PACKWINE Forum & Expo will be examining how a wine business can embrace sustainable practices to build a stronger industry.

Tim Nowell-Usticke is the founder of New Zealand contract bottling, storage and distribution business, WineWorks. Nowell-Usticke started the business in 1995 and, after riding the country’s Sauvignon Blanc boom over the last quarter of a century, WineWorks is now New Zealand’s market leading contract bottler, with its three plants servicing more than 400 of the country’s 700 wineries.

As a speaker at PACKWINE, Nowell-Usticke will address the topic of ‘regional sustainability’ through the lens of the event’s theme of Sustainability and Innovation: Adapting Packaging to the 21st Century.

Nowell-Usticke says that as a wine packer who ‘learnt his commercial chops’ in the ‘80s, the main motivating factor behind business decisions used to be the financial bottom line. However, he explained that when businesses today strive to be sustainable in the wine world, the focus is now on the “triple bottom line of people, planet and profit”.

“Often our clients want ‘sustainable’ but they don’t know what it means.

“Sustainability is a very complex area, and the market is looking for a trusted voice to not necessarily explain the math, but to believe that the story being told is actually correct,” he said.

Nowell-Usticke says his presentation will detail ways a business can “come up with something that customers can trust; and if there is a cost, it has to be for reasons that we care about”.

PACKWINE will feature a series of expert industry speakers as part of its webinar component, all exploring vital topics related to packaging for the Australian and New Zealand wine sectors.

In its inaugural year, PACKWINE will be a print and digital event that will also include a trade exhibition allowing leading suppliers to display their products and services. Design awards will also highlight the year’s best wine packaging.

The PACKWINE Forum & Expo will be published in the May 2021 issue of the Australian & New Zealand Grapegrower & Winemaker, the wine industry’s leading publication, while digital content will also be published online.

PACKWINE is being held in association with Wine Packagers of Australia & New Zealand, The University of Adelaide, the University of South Australia’s Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science and the Australian Institute of Packaging.

Register here now for free to be a delegate at PACKWINE 2021.