O fim das garrafas de vidro, a sustentabilidade na industria do vinho e o futuro do e-commerce do vinho com Santiago Navarro

00:00:00 Santiago Navarro: Delivery's a nightmare. If you've got smart men and women around the table together to create packaging to move wine from winery to dining table, they will not create a round glass bottle for online or what's called distance selling. A packaging that shatters easily, is heavy, space inefficient, costs a lot to move, incurs a lot of carbon now, yeah. It's just, it's just a nightmare packaging.

00:00:26 Packaging that contains products that we consume is more important than packaging that contains products that we might sit on or, or whatever, for a chair or a table. So I believe people care about that. I believe that faced with two choices - an unbranded pack or a branded pack at the same price with the same accessibility - people would choose the branded one.

00:00:51 Wine is a natural online product. And why I say that is wine is a massive long tail. It's a very large number of very small volume products. So wine has a lot of those products and so naturally lends itself to online. But it's been a miserable failure online so far. So I think packaging is mostly to blame for that. Who in their mind would put 750 milliliters of wine, which weighs 750 grams, in a bottle that also weighs 750 grams.

00:01:29 This is Dolia Talks with me, Giovanni Binello. Now, Dolia Talks is the show where we discuss with the best sales and marketing professionals in the world of wine, spirits, and beverages in general. Our guest today is Santiago Navarro. Santiago is the founder of Packamama, a UK startup which is revolutionizing wine packaging through recycled PET flat bottles.

00:01:47 Before Packamama, Santiago launched Vinopic Wines, one of the first online wine retailers in the UK. So Santiago has a ton of knowledge of wine sales, e-commerce, branding, and especially on sustainability and how packaging will change the industry.

00:02:00 This was a truly great show. We started from distribution, we discussed about sales, about branding, about packaging and sustainability. So there really were a ton of insights. As usual, if you have any feedback, or if you want to share suggestions on future guests, feel free to write an email at [email protected]. Enjoy the show!

00:02:21 Hello Santiago. Welcome to Dolia Talks.

00:02:23 Santiago Navarro: Hi Giovanni. Thanks for having me, and great to talk to you on a sunny autumn London day. We need the blue skies and the sun, with these early morning, early dark mornings, but yeah, great to be talking to you and thanks for your interest in Packamama, innovation and sustainability in wine.

00:02:45 Giovanni Binello: Of course, of course. So I want to start really from a phrase that you told me the first time we met. You describe yourself as a wine guy in packaging, not a packaging guy in wine. So tell me why this is important and why do you introduce yourself like that?

00:02:59 Santiago Navarro: Because I guess wine a complex beverage compared to the other beverages, so you can be a packaging guy in mineral water or carbonated soft drinks and you know, do a really good job. I just think that if you don't understand the complexity of wine, if you don't understand wine makers and the fact that every vintage is like a new child and they love it like a child and care for it like a child, you don't understand these specifics - so the need for being very good at preserving wine, being packaging that's inert, non-reactive, good gas barrier, have the data to protect, handle and communicate packaging in a wine language to wine people - then I think it would be even harder than it is. It's already hard as a wine guy in packaging, but I think as a packaging guy in wine, it probably would be now impossible. I have looked to others who I have engaged with, from packaging giants who are trying to make it in wine and have struggled and sometimes I'm being asked, why, why have you managed? Well, you've not had the resources we have. You're an entrepreneur, a startup entrepreneur. And sometimes I put it down when I have the conversations with them, I just think, God, you don't understand the wine industry. How are you ever gonna make it work in this complex product?

00:04:26 So, yeah, I guess that's the genesis to that saying. And I'm happy that I'm a wine guy in packaging. Makes me more fun. Packaging people in wine would be pretty boring.

00:04:40 Giovanni Binello: And I would like to go back to your origin story. So when you were just a wine guy and not yet in packaging.

00:04:46 Santiago Navarro: Yeah.

00:04:46 Giovanni Binello: So I know one of your first ventures was an online wine retailer. Right.

00:04:51 Santiago Navarro: Yeah.

00:04:52 Giovanni Binello: I'm curious, if you could walk us through this first experience. So your origin story, and what did you learn from this that then led you to work in supply chain and packaging?

00:05:03 Santiago Navarro: Yeah, great question. I moved to London in 2005 from Amsterdam. The biggest wine selection in Amsterdam actually was the large supermarket on the Dam Square Albertine. It was a pretty small wine selection, so you could much easily make an informed wine choice. But when I came to the UK and I started shopping in big supermarkets, big UK supermarkets, I encountered the biggest wall of wine I had seen in my adult life. And like, oh my God. How does anyone make a choice with this selection. I mean, it's really the example of paradox of choice where extra choice makes people feel empowered and excited. Too much just freezes people into not knowing what to do. I started thinking, is there no better way to retail wine? People are using price as a benchmark of quality, but that's false. You don't necessarily pay more and get better value. You might be just paying demand and supply or branding. So I decided to create a business called Vinopic Wines and we had a quality score, which was a numeric number, which was agnostic of the price. And there was a sort of waiting to reward cheaper wines that were better quality. But generally speaking it was there as a wine business to, to challenge other ways of buying wine And to empower people to make an informed decision every time, whether it was a special event, wine or a regular wine. So that was the Vinopic Wines experience, but I think I shared the same view as anyone who sells wine online. Delivery's a nightmare. If you've got smart men and women around the table together to create packaging to move wine from winery to dining table, they will not create a round glass bottle for online or what's called distance selling, D2C or direct consumer not to use jargon. A packaging that shatters easily, is heavy, space inefficient, costs a lot to move, incurs a lot of carbon - now increasingly important and for me, the most important metric. Yeah. It's just, it's just a nightmare packaging. So Vinopic Wines was an interesting learning and probably was my accelerated learning of wine. I mean, you taste wine with a master of wine on regular occasions and you're just, wow.

00:07:38 But it was wound down for me to look at.. Looking at a bigger opportunity. I thought the world doesn't need another lame wine company now that probably the world of wine needs better wine packaging for the 21st century, wine packaging for the Amazon generation. I mean, let me just be clear. When I started Vinopic Wines, I assumed that wine could only come in round glass bottles, and that's what it would always come in. I was blinkered like everyone else. But as you're building a business, you look at where you're incurring costs, what's taking up time, having to send those partly broken boxes back to a warehouse, get them sorted. Ask a warehouse person to try to work out which bottle broke from a mixed case of 12. They don't recognize the label it's all stained with wine.

00:08:31 Giovanni Binello: Let's stay on for a second on distribution, because you mentioned, of course this was a D2C business. Do you see value in D2C nowadays for wineries? So, let me rephrase this. If you were, if you were operating a winery, would you give, let's say, priority to D2C or will you still go through the additional distribution channels?

00:08:51 Santiago Navarro: So two things. First of all, and I'll answer the winery

00:08:54 Giovanni Binello: Okay.

00:08:55 Santiago Navarro: D2C afterwards. So Vinopic Wines was an online merchant, so it was a distributor, it was a distance selling model, not a D2C. We didn't sell our own wines. The winery example is a good one, but we took wine in bulk, so on pallets, and then we broke those pallets down.

00:09:12 You could buy a full box or a mixed case, et cetera. So the traditional wine.com and other such models. If I had a winery, would I sell D2C? Wow, yeah, for sure. I mean, that's the dream. Build a big enough database of loyal customers, cut out all the middle people and make maximum margin and engage those people and give a lovely experience and use good packaging for it.You've got a good example out of Australia, the pioneering Mark Davidson owns one of the best known wineries in Hunter Valley called Tambourine Wines, and one of the leading organic producers in Australia, and they activated more than a year ago now, a new brand of drinking, and it's in our packaging and it sells online and it sells wine really well.

00:10:07 I mean, I think the first time we did 50,000 units, they sold in five weeks. I mean that's, you know, most people would wish they sold 50,000 in five weeks in a big retailer, let alone direct keeping all the margin stuff and actually saves all the money on the delivery of the product. So yeah, I think the US wineries also do a great job with this. Hunter Valley actually outside Sydney is a good example by the way. Because it has lots of visitors. So people visit the winery, go to cellar door, they can get signed up to database. And the same thing in the US. Wineries do a good... Some wineries do a good job.

00:10:47 They have good cellar door track to engage that audience, sign them up and sell direct. So more margin, engagement, you know, I think also more rewarding as a winery, executive owner, wine maker. You maybe you get direct feedback, you know who's enjoying your wine. Back to that point I mentioned before, you know many people in wine they're like artists. I think the art world and the wine world have much in common. The people who frequented work in it, it's something more than job. It's part of their identity. It's deeply ingrained in their life. So, yeah, definitely D2C. Better packaging, better technology. Good database management. Good follow up.

00:11:35 Giovanni Binello: So what, what did you realize during this experience, at Vinopic, that then led you to the idea of Packamama? So what was the origin story behind Packamama?

00:11:46 Santiago Navarro: The critical realization is that primary packaging informs secondary and tertiary packaging. Now primary is the packaging that sits directly in contact with the goods that it transports or carries. And so in the instance of wine, it's like a bottle or a can. So if you have primary packaging, you end up with a lot of secondary or tertiary packaging, protected packaging, to get it to market. So we realized that, however thick your box was and however many fragile stickers you put on the box, you would still have somebody who would manage to break the bottles in the box. I think the fragile sticker by some was taken as an invitation to play football or rugby. So you realize that basically you gotta change the bottle for different business models.

00:12:37 Giovanni Binello: I'm curious about the material. So you use recycled PET, right?

00:12:42 Santiago Navarro: We use PET as a base resin because it's inert, transparent. I mean it's pretty ideal for wine. We boost its gas barrier by means of additives that are recyclable, that have no impact on the wine. We also include a UV inhibitor that removes the risk of light strike and sometimes we color the bottles for visual.

00:13:09 Giovanni Binello: Because I saw also other startups making, for example, wine in paper bottles or aluminum bottles. So how is PET different from these other materials and why did you choose PET over these materials?

00:13:25 Santiago Navarro: Pretty easy choice to be honest. Aluminum is not transparent and it's reactive with wine. So with that in mind, PET is you know, far superior for wine than aluminum. Paper obviously can't be in contact with a liquid. It becomes a mashy pulp, so it has a plastic liner. So if you're gonna have a plastic liner, you might as well just have a plastic bottle. And why deforest just to cover the plastic bottle. It makes no sense. So you also can't in a fridge or in a nice bucket. Yeah. Doesn't work. So, PET is the natural choice.

00:14:11 Giovanni Binello: If I could summarize in three words, maybe the overall value position of Packamama, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I see surely an element of sustainability as you mentioned. Then there's the operational efficiency layer, so making shipping and packaging more efficient. And then there's also a part of branding, because of course it's a different packaging, so it plays a big role in in branding.

00:14:33 Which one of these do you see is more appealing for your customers? So is it sustainability, is it the efficiency, or is it the branding and a differentiation side?

00:14:41 Santiago Navarro: Depends which customer. Firstly it's important to say the wine world is very big. Morgan Stanley research puts the figure down to a million commercial wineries globally. I think that's a bit overstated, but there are a lot of very small producers across the globe, and many of them are commercial. Even if on a local level, Australia has 2,200 wineries, France depends on whose figures. 15, 17,000 wineries. Different wineries have different needs. Different retailers have different requests. The retailer is not normally our customer, but they're our partner because they enable the shelf space to get the wineries into sustainable packaging. I think sustainability should be everyone's, the wine industry is deeply impacted by global warming and the impact of extreme weather events as a result of a heating planet. So let me be clear, the wine industry has about 8,000 vintages or 8,000 years of history in the last decade or two. It's had an excessive level of extreme weather events, frosts in the Northern Hemisphere spring. You know, things that vines hate, vines love consistency in temperature and reliability of seasonality. It's not getting it anymore and it risks... There's one study from the Earth that shows that two degrees of heating around 50% of the world of wine would be rewritten. We already see this in places like Burgundy or Champagne, where people call into question whether there remains to be another generation who will take the bounties of the land. So sustainability needs to be for everybody. I mean, not being sustainable as a wine company it's just absolutely bad for business, bad for livelihood, bad for future generations. It's just nonsensical and idiotic. So efficiency is important for those for whom they have large volumes. Those volumes travel great distance in bottle.

00:16:52 And you see this when we sort of work with retailers and they publish data to show how many trucks off the road, or the percent double digit percentage, Aldi, 30% fewer trucks, Albertsons, United States, 44% fewer pallets, which can then translate to trucks. So it's a double digit. Big numbers we're not told like couple of percent or basis points, we're into the big numbers.

00:17:16 So, efficiency's important for those with long distance supply chains, big volumes, et cetera. Branding I think is important for all, and more in the commercial space. There are boutique producers who produce exceptionally high quality wine and have a very loyal following. And where demand for far outstrips supply, do they really need branding? Arguably not. The value is in the juice in the bottle. But if you are, you know, one of a competitive set from California for the global market, then branding is fundamentally important and branding is important for Packamama, let me be clear, not just for our customers. My North Star is Intel, the chip maker. Intel Inside, the sticker that goes on a computer or laptop is a great example of a B2B company that helps sell B2C. Why is it a North star for Packamama? Because people buy laptops and computers because of a sticker that says Intel Inside. They trust that then the components in the laptop are of a above average standard. This is just a B2B company that's helping Lenovo or Dell or someone sell more, uh, hardware. I hope that the Packamama brand will come to be seen as a beacon of trust by consumers to say this is different packaging, but it's done by those geeks who care, those geeks who do it well, geeks who are passionate about wine and packaging and mother Earth. And so I hope that eventually we can build a brand that people will flip over the bottle to check 'cause it's a new bottle they've never seen and they will see the Packamama logo and they say, ah, good. Okay. I trust the packaging now and now I know the brand and the wine and so I'm gonna take it.

00:19:19 Giovanni Binello: How do you get to this kind of brand recognition?

00:19:22 Santiago Navarro: First of all, produce quality stuff. I guess that's what Intel did well. So yeah, you can't, you cannot buy your way to this. You cannot just spend on advertising and ship rubbish. Produce best in class, which is what we aim always with every single bottle, not just a batch. Be innovative. Be exciting. Be engaging. Talk a consumer language. Care to engage with consumers. Take time to speak to people. Learn, learn, learn. So yeah, quality products made with the consumer in mind. Talk to consumers. Engage with consumers. Leverage social media where possible. I probably, frankly could do a bit of a better job than we may be doing at the moment on our marketing. But I am recruiting for marketing manager. So if anyone hears this wants to reach out to me to be our marketing manager, if we've not filled the role, then I'll do a cheeky plug, because you gotta do that when you're a business owner.

00:20:30 Giovanni Binello: Respectfully, do you think consumers, I mean the mass consumer will base their purchase decision on the packaging and on specifically on your packaging?

00:20:42 Santiago Navarro: They will not base the decision, but they will trust a new format.

00:20:46 Giovanni Binello: Okay.

00:20:47 Santiago Navarro: Packaging that contains products that we consume is more important than packaging that contains products that we might sit on or, or whatever, you know, for a chair or a table. The liquids in it that we're consuming it, so I believe people care about that. I believe that faced with two choices - an unbranded pack or a branded pack at the same price with the same accessibility - people would choose the branded one. So I think it is a justified business activity to try to create that position. And you might have asked that question to Michael Dell, many years ago, before Intel was a brand, and said: you really think you're gonna put a sticker that says you've got a certain chip in a laptop and you're gonna sell it better than another one? And you know, what he would've answered you'd have to ask Michael Dell. But it's worked phenomenally well. And I, I, again, maybe being too cheeky here, but I do think people care. Moreover in wine, it is a motive product, you know, a bit like cars or football. Those who consume more, and engage in that activity are overly connected to it. It's without a doubt, probably the most expensive in most people's grocery baskets.

00:22:12 Giovanni Binello: Do you think this is something that could appeal also to older generations or mainly to like Gen Z and after?

00:22:20 Santiago Navarro: I am not sure I'm building anything for older generations, frankly. I'm most interested in creating packaging that excites the young and the future generations. And this is not about lifetime value from a business metric. And I'm not being unreasonable or unkind here, I'm just being realistic. If you're 20 today you'll probably live to 90 or a hundred with current medicine. You got a long time on the planet. You really care what the planet's gonna look like at two and three degrees of heating. If you are 60+, the planet will be okay as long as you've got on planet. And maybe that doesn't trigger people to do enough. However, silver lining to this somewhat doom and gloom, we do get quite a bit of older demographic engagement with our packaging in some markets. In the UK we are over a high engagement with younger demographic. Yeah, but interestingly in Australia and the Nordics, it's an older demographic and we dug into why this was, 'cause it totally was counter to my rationale. And we found that people were buying the packaging to take on boats, in camper vans, hiking, to cabins. They would buy the wine in our packaging to use whilst engaging in activities or using assets that are not affordable to younger generations. And so if you're going out on a boat, chances are you're older and you've, you own a boat. So in that instance, we found there were all the... And in fact in Australia we're really popular with what's called gray nomads. It's a population of people who retire then buy a camper van and travel around the very diverse continent of Australia in a camper van. In that instance, weight and space is important, and in that instance, Packamama wins. But I didn't set out to make packaging for them. I set out to make packaging for Greta Thunberg's generation.

00:24:36 Giovanni Binello: Do you think there's a tension between perceived quality and bottle format and material? I mean, will we ever see, for example, a Packamama bottle for Dom Perignon or Veuve Clicquot?

00:24:51 Santiago Navarro: No is the short answer because those volumes are too small to make much of an impact. It's sometimes the point I make: fine wine producers should care about what the commercial end of the spectrum is packed in because fine wine producers are far more geographically pegged than commercial producers. If you're a brand and you offer Italian Pinot Grigio, you can get that from the boot, the heel, the top, the middle. You can get it from wherever the Pinot Grigio is available a good price. If you're a very specific producer in Bolgheri for those, um, who are outside Tuscany, a, a small area that produces high quality Italian wines - Sassicaia, Tignanello et cetera - you should care what the commercial wine in Italy is packed in because if weather patterns change significantly in Bolgheri, you have to pack up and move elsewhere, and then you probably are totally disrupting your life, your family, your livelihood. So in terms of premium, I guess there's several factors to this. First of all, I said it before, and I'll say it again. Sustainability and eco-friendliness should be the ultimate in premium. We're facing an existential threat, not as just a wine industry, but as humanity. So premium should be the thing that is the pinnacle and that should be sustainability. So there is... Glass is wonderful for reuse, I got a very dry throat earlier in this recording and I reached out to get a glass. Which, I'll show it to screen. This glass has existed for many, many loops. It goes back to the dishwasher. It's a phenomenal type of packaging. But it's, you know, high, high level of reuse. You're making wine in California, or in Chile or Argentina and ship it around the world, then what you pack in does make a big difference. Some people think that glass is more sustainable than other formats. Some people think it's okay to smoke. You know, people think all sorts, data doesn't lie. Um, yeah, glass will become unaffordable for most wines due to carbon taxes. There's already taxes in the UK and other markets called packaging taxes like extended producer responsibility. It's the cost for local government to collect and recycle. It's given us Packamama a commercial and financial advantage against glass because simply we're an easier product for those councils to handle. And when we get a container deposit scheme or deposit return scheme in 2027, it will give us an even greater advantage. So, glass works, Packamama formats though are far superior for the 21st century. One final observation on this. Whatever I do, I will never beat Usain Bolt in a hundred meter sprint. We're built differently. Packamama bottles are built differently from the standard glass bottle. They've got no chance.

00:28:18 Giovanni Binello: When you speak to wineries and winemakers, which are the main pushbacks that you get?

00:28:24 Santiago Navarro: Many. But I think actually more important, first of all, than the specific pushback is why is there that pushback first of all, in the presence of data? And this is because we are hardwired as humans not to want risk and not to change. So change brings risk and risk, is counter to our, survival that we've evolved and developed so well, which is why we're successful compared to, our ape cousins. We're a fluke of nature. We're just so successful as a species, and we're hardwired not to take on risk because that helps survival. So, people will come up with all sorts of reasons not to, and we're not asking people, by the way, to make a blanket change into our format. We're asking for more companies to trial a low emissions format that is still consumer engaging and that retailers like and consumers share on social media. So, then the pushback is I don't know how to bottle it. I'm not sure I get a retailer listing. Not sure it's right for us at this point. Yeah, all sorts. We probably don't dwell too much in that because we have enough current opportunities with people who are excited to innovate. And as an entrepreneur, there's nothing worse than dealing with naysayers who find excuses in everything. Good thing is though, with packaging change... With packaging legislation changes, packaging taxes, with more data on the impacts of the climate crisis with more evidence of its impact on the wine industry, you get to a point where the risk in inaction is far, far greater the risk of considered action. And what I mean by that is sitting, doing nothing in the face of data that says you should do something, it's far worse for you than taking a calculated trial at a time when you should be doing it, and the data says you should.

00:30:37 And now the risk of sitting still, it is not one that I would take as a commercial wine company. I would start to switch and trial different brands and do small trials in different markets where we don't want to be right for everybody. If you're right for everybody, you're too vanilla to be significant. So yeah, many excuses, but all part of this hardwired reason not to change.

00:31:03 Giovanni Binello: You mentioned different markets. I was speaking to an entrepreneur in the No/Low area, and he was mentioning there are some markets where my product is much more appreciated than other markets. For example, he's building this startup in Italy and he says in Italy it's super tough because Italy is a super traditional wine traditional country, "A glass a day gives a doctor away", things like that. Do you see a similar trend with packaging? So do you see some countries and some markets are more responsive than others?

00:31:37 Santiago Navarro: The no and low and the packaging are different. Lemme start by saying, because no and low is actually changing the product that's in the bottle that is the crux of why we drink wine. As I said, we've got 8,000 vintages and the modern day glass bottle is credited to, to Sir Kenelm Digby 400 years ago in the 17th century. So there's a very big difference, you know, when the Romans, Greeks, et cetera drank wine, they were not using wine bottles as we know today. So I think you can change the packaging and not have the same result whilst changing the underlying recipe, let's call it, or the reasons why people drink: that relaxing feeling, that social lubricant, great mix with food and the food matching. We do perform differently though in different markets thinking about a bit more you know - negligible traction in Italy. Just done some research with an Italian university to look at Italian consumer behavior to bottles, and the results were really positive.

00:32:47 I'm not sure whether I'm allowed to say which university, but a kind winery in Toscana, Tuscany, filled a sample batch, which went out to 200 households with a questionnaire run by this university. And the results were really insightful. So. I'm hopeful we do get into Italy soon, and other markets, and we're still a startup. Our primary focus is the UK, Australia, US, and France. There's a also deep connection between those markets in terms of where the exports are going, who's buying each other's wines, et cetera. So yeah, but I think, as I say, I think the shift is moving much faster. I think we've passed the tipping point. Where when I first started doing this, I was considered probably a little mad and why didn't I have a real job? But when I sit here today and the conversations we have, even the last 24 hours, the conversations I've had with C-suite executives of wine companies, people are really getting it and the big retailers are really calling out for need. And moreover, those retailers that are listed on a stock market, for example, and so have to report to shareholders what they're doing. Final point on that actually, what's driving the change? You can see this, for example, in Treasury Wine Estates, which is a big Australian wine company, um, report their risks to their shareholders in their annual report and climate risk has a really big part in the report. So yeah, they get it.

00:34:40 Giovanni Binello: Do in terms of distribution, do you think this, for example, these new kind of packaging formats, like, like Packamama will enable new business models? And what I mean by that, do you think the distribution mix for wineries that adopt this new packaging, will it be the same or that would be, for example, more focus on e-commerce, more focus on D2C, I'm thinking also subscription services since shipping becomes more efficient. So do you think the distribution mix will change?

00:35:11 Santiago Navarro: Let me start with the last one first and then I'll go the other way. There's quite a bit of commentary at the moment as to where the subscription is dead. Probably not a bad thing that it fades out a little bit, I think. Subscription drives more purchase and arguably increases waste. Probably better in a model where you have a very fast button to reorder when you exactly need, not that you're being sent something without needing it, and then it potentially goes to waste.

00:35:45 So unless, for example, the subscription service for a software or something, which then this doesn't apply to, but about a food or beverage. Then maybe not a bad thing that those businesses, fade a bit, or totally. In terms of distance selling and e-comm for sure. I mean, it's where I started this conversation. wine is a natural online product and why, why I say that is wine is a massive long tail. For those who don't know what long tail is and are listening in, it's a very large number of very small volume products. Books and music are the same. You have the bestsellers, but then you have those books that are only read by a cult following, but still can be stocked if they're in a big warehouse in the middle of nowhere compared to in a retail bricks and mortar retail in a city center.

00:36:42 So, wine has a lot of those products and so naturally lends itself to online. But it's been a miserable failure online so far, including, surprisingly, with Amazon, that's been a success with everything. So I think packaging is mostly to blame for that. Really not a product for... I mean, who in their mind would put 750 milliliters of wine, which weighs 750 grams in a bottle that also weighs 750 grams. I mean, this is like, you know, business failure for dummies. Makes no sense. So yeah, I do believe better packaging will unlock better business models, more online, more D2C for wineries direct and for the reasons I explained before. I, we can help bring some of that success and better returns around to wineries.

00:37:38 Giovanni Binello: Do you think that consumers actually want to purchase wine online? I mean, because that's a question I'm asking myself. Will there ever be a world where consumers prefer buying wine online rather than going to a shop and seeing with their eyes and choosing? I don't know that that's an open question.

00:37:55 Santiago Navarro: Some consumers, I think some would say the same. Well, why would consumers want to buy stuff like meat or fish that traditionally were served at a butcher or a fishmonger. You can really see it and you see, and those who know what a good meat looks like. I'm from a little island, so you know that if you open the cheek of the fish and the gills are bright red, then it's fresh, and if they're pinky, it's as old as the hills. And the same thing with the eyes of the fish. Those specific things, but I mean with the exception of the rule, think most people are happy to buy anything online if it's more convenient. So there will be those who will still buy partly online and partly in bricks and mortar. There'll those who go play online. There's those who go pure play bricks and mortar. I just think that, once, you know, global industry, it's, it's such, you know, reasonably good volumes. But the online portion is just so small. Even the biggest in the world, wine.com, is still so small compared to a bricks and mortar retailer. Where, yeah, I mean, it will make natural sense to buy online and have it delivered.

00:39:12 Giovanni Binello: So I want to move to the final section of this interview, which is a bit of a quick fire, which means I will ask you five questions and I would like you to answer them in one or two sentences. So the, the first thing that comes to mind.

00:39:26 Santiago Navarro: Okay. Be nice.

00:39:28 Giovanni Binello: You, you know, I'm nice. So you inherit a winery and that will be a very traditional one. Long history also with a bit of budget, which are the first three things you do?

00:39:44 Santiago Navarro: Oh, I inherit a winery. The first three things I do, I'd think of the three people who do better at keeping the winery than me. I think to those three people. Making money in a winery is very tough. I gotta first have made a lot of money in packaging before I can inherit that winery. But if I look at it as a business case, seriously, I'd want to look at the sales and meet the customers, wanna meet the team and know the cost base. And overall, I'd want to know how sustainable the winery is and how we can make it more sustainable.

00:40:19 Giovanni Binello: Is there a wine category, a wine type that would benefit the most from your format? And is there one that isn't really suitable for that?

00:40:31 Santiago Navarro: So the one that benefits most is the one that's large volume and travels greatest distance in bottle. It would be like a commercial brand that's truly international, from one production base. The one that doesn't is either a fine wine that needs decades of cellaring or one that is produced and consumed in the local village where they should use a glass bottle and rewash it in a industrial dishwasher, like I explained there when I showed you my glass.

00:40:59 Giovanni Binello: So you said, I read in a previous interview you said, we can fail, but the wine industry shouldn't fail itself. So what's your call to action for the wine industry? So what's the one phrase that summarizes it all?

00:41:13 Santiago Navarro: I guess I was saying that, that the success of the wine industry and the success of our planet is far more important than the success of an individual business. Of course, I don't want Packamama to fail. I'm not, a sad, masochist type of guy, but there's something bigger underlying why I get out of bed and come to the office. So faced with a binary question, success for the wine industry as a whole or successful, just myself. Very easy answer. Success for the wine industry as a whole.

00:41:44 Giovanni Binello: So complete this sentence. The wine industry would be much better if it stopped.

00:41:48 Santiago Navarro: If it stopped talking and started acting, I mean, the wine industry does a hell of a lot of blah, blah, blah, and does two little acting. I name a gazillion talks I've seen recently on LinkedIn where people were preaching all the good stuff and I look who was on the panel and they're just shipping wine and heavy glass bottles. And yeah, stop talking and do something about it.

00:42:13 Giovanni Binello: It won't surprise you, but Robin said the same

00:42:17 Thanks for listening to the show. Personally, I learned a lot from Santiago. Wine packaging is often taken for granted, but actually there's a lot of work that can still be done to change the industry. If you enjoy this, please leave your review on Spotify and feel free to share this with your network.

00:42:31 Thanks, and see you next week.​