Comments on: When seeing is not believing

By: Plastic Bottles

Plastic Bottles — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 15:37:32 +0000

I would tend to agree with the majority. I feel glass bottles are very versatile, they provide a good container for wine keeping it fresh and very tasteful. Additionally, they are very easy to reuse around the house as vases, etc. I think glass bottles will remain the main container for most respectable wineries in the future.

By: Dylan

Dylan — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 01:29:02 +0000

I agree with your issues against the polls, Steve, but there is one thing to consider. You said these answer don’t tell the whole truth, but, in fact, they tell a very real truth. There’s a lack of education regarding the topics questioned in the poll. As you said, “if the truth had been explained to them, their answer would have been quite different.” That’s the telling part of it. Regardless of the actual truth, the public perception is what is evinced from this poll. And, perception oft times becoming reality, is a useful statistic for the bottling industry to have. They get to say with their poll, “the perception is on our side.”

By: Morton Leslie

Morton Leslie — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 23:21:42 +0000

Wine should be in glass, the way God intended it!

When I was in college my roomate and I used to buy jugs of Zin from Frank Cadenasso for a couple bucks a gallon. We’d buy as many as would fit in the bed of the old green International and distribute them among other poor, wine loving Davis households. Frank gave us 50 cents refund on the empty bottles, so we ALWAYS returned the empties. It was like a 25% discount. He also gave us a taste of his rather conservative political views which always added a little levity to the drive home.

The round trip from Davis to Fairfield probably ate up any environmental benefit from bottle reuse, but then Al Gore was in high school at the time inventing the internet and still learning about the environment, so who knew?

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 17:15:43 +0000

Intersting post Steve.

The other angle here is that the glass industry is being impacted by the trade down from glass bottles to aluminum cans–in addition to other cyclical and secular factors. This is mostly occuring in the beer market here in the US, but adds to the pressure on glass volumes for the industry as a whole.

Just this morning the latest shipping figures were released for April by the Glass Packaging Insititute. This excerpt is from a research note that hit my inbox:

“The April 2009 glass shipments declined 3.5% YoY, better than our expectations for a decline of 8.8%. Within the beer category, the largest category within glass containers, shipments declined 1.5% YoY in April.”

“In the latest data release, GPI re-stated 1Q09 figures as well, due to the addition of one additional company within the industry sampling. The re-stated 1Q09 glass shipments now show a decline of 4.7% (versus a decline of 4.6% previously reported). The re-stated beer category declined 5.8% YoY (versus a 5.6% decline previously reported).”

I guess it’s not too surprising that the PR folks are in high gear.

By: John M. Kely

John M. Kely — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 13:46:03 +0000

Um… that would be “standardized.”