une boîte, s'il vous plaît

I came across an interesting article yesterday from Food Production Daily - Europe. The article discussed the boxed wine trend and how it might finally be catching on in France, "as consumers here prefer their wine in the more socially-acceptable bottle."

Until recently, I always turned my nose up at boxed wine. But boxed wine is changing, even if I'm not quite there yet. Of course, I never had the French option of taking a plastic jug to a merchant or chateau and having it filled from a large vat. That sounds heavenly, and I understand how that could compete with the boxed option.

However, the French are now changing their minds and slowly coming around to the wine-in-a-box idea. They are coming to appreciate the price per volume as well as the extended shelf life of boxed wine, once open. Consumers are also realizing that transporting and opening/sealing the wine is much easier in a box.

Françoise Brugière of Viniflhor, France's national wine industry board, said a 2006 survey by the organisation found that 12.5 per cent of consumers said they had bought wine in bag-in-box packaging, a two percentage points rise over 2005. 

In both the UK and France, boxed wines represent about 9% of the wine market. Globally, boxes are generally more accepted than in France, UK, and the US.

... the market penetration rate is up to 42 per cent in Norway, 33 per cent in Sweden, 25 per cent in Finland, and 12 per cent in Denmark, according to various statistics compiled by IRI France, ACNielsen Infoscan and TNS WorldPanel.

With the growing acceptance of boxed wine, packaging standards are being developed to ensure quality, which is a boon to consumers and manufacturers. Right now, it will take effort for many manufacturers to switch over to boxed wine, due to the purchasing of all new equipment. However, because the actual packaging costs less to transport and create than bottles, it may be less expensive for the wineries in the long run.

Oh, and the US market share percentage for boxed wine? 6%, the lowest global penetration.