A business dedicated to deliver on better wine packaging outcomes, Greenskin was recently created as a glassless wine packaging option.

The company’s chief Greenskinners Mike Davies and Kim McKee fused their passion for great wine, the environment and an active, outdoor lifestyle to create a solution that is kinder to the planet.

As avid sailors and serious wine lovers, they identified a challenge when on a boat – there’s no hiding just how inconvenient traditional wine glass bottles are as they are heavy, bulky, breakable and very inconvenient to dispose of during and at the end of an outdoor adventure.

In addition, they found that glass is very energy-intensive to produce and transport.

So, after storing, carrying, drinking and disposing of their fair share of glass bottles, they created a brand and product that was better suited to the great outdoors and to the environment.

Going glassless was their answer.

They launched the Greenskin brand, and along with it the Greenskin Wine pouch, a light, sleek, soft pouch that is BPA free and is 100 per cent recyclable. While the Greenskin pouch is similar to other liquid packaging, it is specifically designed for wine as it has an oxygen barrier that is absolutely critical to protect the wine.

The pouch resealable – the air can be squeezed out and resealed to protect the quality of any remaining wine – and is 60 per cent of the weight and volume of a six-pack of glass bottles.

According to the company, a 750ml Greenskin pouch takes less than 20 per cent of the energy to produce, compared to a 750ml glass bottle, and due to the pouches’ low weight and compact nature, emit far fewer emissions when they are transported compared to glass.

The company has also partnered with REDCycle, giving every part of the pouch a second life. Each six-pack of Greenskin Wine also includes a pre-paid post-pack for consumers to place their empty pouches into and mail back.

Currently, the company offers six inaugural varieties that are hand-selected from premium Western Australian vineyards, but are looking to add more varieties to its collection over time.

Each variety of Greenskin Wine has a unique colour-coded sticker on the label on the back of the pouch, which displays the wine’s vintage (year), variety and region. It also has a QR code to scan if consumers want to find more detailed information about each wine.

Not only are the small parcels of wine bought by Greenskin hand chosen by the company, it also visits each winery and packages them up themselves in their purpose-built trailer, the ‘Green Machine’.

Davies and McKee, who met in the boating world, said, “The idea of putting wine into a soft pouch reared its head over a long lunch about 10 years ago, but back then the pouches were not recyclable and bringing more plastic into the world, and the oceans we so love, just did not sit well with us.

“Over time, technology of materials and recycling methods have improved and the Greenskin pouch is now 100 per cent recyclable, which gave us the motivation to proceed.

“Our creative daughter Ellen, coined the name Greenskin (being a play on the wine term Clean Skin and incorporated the environmental side), which we loved from the outset.

“We are thrilled to be able to fuse our passion for great wine, the environment, and an active, outdoor lifestyle to give Aussies something that genuinely solves a problem for them all while being kinder to the planet.”