Pernod Ricard has entered a five-year global licensing agreement with circular packaging company Ecospirits to distribute Pernod Ricard brands in on-premise venues.
The deal comes after Pernod Ricard conducted a pilot with the Singapore-founded packaging company in 2022.
The global rollout will see Pernod Ricard’s Beefeater London Dry gin, Havana Club rum and Absolut vodka packaged and distributed in Ecospirits’ custom storage and dispenser system.
Ecospirits’ main system is called Ecotote, a re-useable glass container that holds 4.5 litres of liquid, held inside a branded outer shell. It aims to reduce packaging waste by providing on-premise locations with branded refillable containers.
Ecospirits’ containers are connected to the internet and can report depletion levels. The system also allows for the pouring of spirits set to local measurements. To facilitate the bottling and refilling of the containers in local regions, Ecospirits maintains a facility called an ‘Ecoplant’ that operates as a bottling and Ecotote cleaning unit.
Pernod Ricard said the system has been “consolidated at an industry level” at its Havana Club’s distillery in San José de las Lajas, where an ’Ecoplant’ has been established to service the rum’s home market. The group has not given details on additional markets for the system.
“Pernod Ricard and Ecospirits have been working together for almost three years now to make circularity a reality in the spirits industry. This new global agreement builds on that journey, and our combined expertise, to bring circular packaging to more Pernod Ricard markets around the world,” Ecospirits CEO Paul Gabie said.
Last year, Diageo announced that it would start rolling out the Ecotote systems in 2024 and would conduct an analysis of the pilot’s results in three years to judge the “sustainability benefits” of the system.
In 2022, EcoSpirits deployed SmartKiosk refill machines for spirit bottles in retail stores in Singapore and is looking towards a similar deployment in the European market.
The alcohol vending system allows consumers to refill branded bottles of spirits at their local supermarket, reducing the need for single-use glass and plastics. The SmartKiosk operates using a touch screen and bottles that have been equipped with NFC authentication tags.
