Shipping wine is mostly a problem of movement. Bottles are heavy, glass is unforgiving, and any space inside the box that lets a bottle shift will eventually cause a break. For years, the standard answer was foam inserts moulded to the bottle shape. They work. They are also expensive, bulky to store, and impossible to recycle in most kerbside collections.
A wine merchant in the south of England took a different route. They ship mixed cases-six bottles, sometimes twelve-to private customers and small restaurants. Their packaging used to involve moulded pulp inserts for the base and foam for the neck and shoulder. Both came on pallets, and both took up half the packing room.
The change came when they started looking at the cardboard arriving with their own deliveries. Wine comes in cases, and those cases come in outer cartons. That outer cardboard was going straight into a baler. It occurred to them that it could do the job the foam was doing.
They bought an Aircosan P10. The machine handles cardboard up to 35cm wide and 10mm thick, running at 10 metres per minute. It sits on a bench beside the packing table. The output is a honeycomb mesh that they use to build a cushion around each bottle and to fill the void at the top of the case.
The merchant was clear about the results. Breakages dropped compared to their old method, largely because the mesh conforms around the bottle shoulder in a way that flat foam does not. Material costs fell sharply. Storage space for packaging went from half a room to a single shelf.
One adjustment they mentioned. The mesh needs to be packed firmly. Loose filling allows movement, which defeats the purpose. Staff learned this quickly.
Aircosan manufactures these units themselves and builds models up to 120cm wide for industrial users. For a small merchant, that manufacturing background was part of the appeal-the machine feels built to last rather than built to a price.