Brazilian Spirits Brand Lightens the Load of Heavy Packaging With Re lls

ANNE MARIE MOHAN | SENIOR EDITOR, PACKAGING WORLD

BEG DESTILARIA is the first spirits company to develop an aluminum refill bottle in Brazil for its artisanal gin, in partnership with Trivium Packaging. Founded in 2015 in Brazil, BEG produces all of its products by hand whereby once the botanicals have been distilled, the resulting spirit is diluted with water rather than neutral alcohol in order to reach the alcohol by volume required for bottling.

When BEG switched from a standard glass bottle for its gin to a unique mold and branded bottle, the company realized that in an e ort to appear more premium, it had added more weight and consequently a bigger carbon footprint to its product.

“For the on-trade market [bars and restaurants], that factor [custom packaging] counts little, unless for bottle service, and even more glass was ending up in the trash,” says Arthur Flosi, BEG Boutique Distillery’s founding partner and master distiller. “Day after day, we received various feedback on social media regarding how beautiful our bottle is and how pitiful it was to throw that beauty away. That’s how the idea of launching a sustainable alternative was born.”

While BEG considered a range of alternatives for the refill bottle, including aseptic cartons, lighter glass bottles, and even aluminum cans, Flosi says that none were up to the quality of the distillery’s gin or felt as premium as the brand’s unique glass bottle. Instead, it chose a 500-mL stock aluminum bottle, which is produced using an advanced alloy, allowing for a lightweight, 48-g container with a low carbon footprint when compared with the original glass bottle, notes Marcelo Nery, coordinator of R&D for Trivium Packaging-Brazil. According to BEG, the refill bottle is nine times lighter than glass, “meaning less fossil fuel per volume transported.”

“The aluminum bottle from Trivium is perfect,” says Flosi. “It looks great, it feels great, it’s more versatile—aluminum goes where glass can’t—it costs less for our customers, and it’s way more sustainable. In Brazil, 98.4% of all the aluminum packaging is recycled.”

One of the considerations in developing the refill bottle was the selection of a coating for the inside of the container. Nery shares that Trivium is using a special food-grade liner that resists the high content of alcohol to protect the properties of the product and extend its shelf life. Notes Flosi, “We are already at 12 months of real shelf-life testing without any change in flavor and/or chemical structure.”

The stock bottle is custom printed using two processes: dry o set printing and heat transfer to allow for di erent graphics for small orders.

The refill system was launched at retail in Brazil in late 2021. BEG o ers five di erent aluminum bottles that correspond to each of the glass bottles it sells in Grupo Pão de Açucar, the biggest retailer in Brazil. The cost of the refill is 33% less than that of the glass bottle. “Each aluminum bottle has 500 mL vs. 750 mL from glass,” explains Flosi. “The price of the aluminum is 50% cheaper, so the customer would be able to buy 1 L of BEG gin for the same price as 750 mL in glass.”