The View: Petainer Kegs - A Sustainable and Economical Solution

Jennifer Molgat, President of The View Winery and Wards Cider in Canada explains why her business chose petainerKeg as the more sustainable and economical packaging solution

The View Winery produces award-winning wines and Wards Apple Cider products which are all distributed throughout the Pacific Northwest. Our kegged wines and ciders are sold to restaurants and pubs.

We use 20-litre Petainer kegs for our Silver Lining White and Silver Lining Red Wines. For all our Wards Cider products we use 30-litre Petainer kegs.  We have been using one-way PET kegs since 2015. I came across Petainer's kegs while researching kegging systems online.

Lower cost than stainless steel

As a small size winery and cidery at the time, we did not feel that we could commit to the expense of purchasing a fleet of stainless steel tanks and a system to sanitize them.  The cost to manage a fleet of stainless steel tanks and to retrieve them from customers for cleaning and refilling was also a factor that steered us toward Petainer.  It was also great to have flexibility in terms of minimum orders from our petainerKeg supplier when we first started kegging products. We were able to purchase a comfortable number of kegs to start until we gained more traction in the market place and increased our distribution.

A more sustainable option

The most important reason we chose Petainer, however, was because it met with our commitment to environmental sustainability.  I love the fact that Petainer kegs have a 30% carbon footprint compared to traditional kegs which must be shipped back to the winery for cleaning and refilling.  With Petainer kegs, they get shipped one way to the customer and then are placed in the recycling bins when they are finished with them.

Hot water and harmful cleaning agents are not required to clean the kegs and we are happy that they have a 30% carbon footprint compared to traditional steel kegs.  We are pleased to use a product that is more environmentally friendly and in keeping with our commitment to sustainability

Easy to use and looks great

The kegs are well made and easy to use.  I love their sleek look and find them light and relatively easy to manoeuvre.  In the few years we have been using petainerKegs there have been improvements and innovation in terms of the valves, and the outer casing.  Petainer seems committed to innovation and improvement of its products and has always welcomed feedback from us.

Impact on the bottom line

In terms of the bottom line, petainerKegs have allowed us to avoid uncomfortable up-front capital investment.  This made it much easier to ease into the keg market without too much risk and with a much more simplified one-way distribution model.

www.theviewwinery.com  www.wardshardcider.com