Tesco looks to finest to boost bag-in-box format

Tesco is rolling out five of the best-selling wines from its *finest range into bespoke 1.5L bag-in-box formats from tomorrow in a bid to boost different packaging ce format. 

The new upmarket boxed wine, which comprises a Fiano, Montepulciano, Picpoul de Pinet (rsp: £14.99), and a Chenin Blanc (rsp: £12.99) and Shiraz (rsp: £13.99) from Swartland, South Africa, will be available nationwide, Tesco said.

UK and global category product development manager Laura Jewell MW said the new 1.5L format was lighter, more compact and more convenient than two equivalent 75cl glass bottles and would keep the wine fresh for six weeks. “We felt this size was perfect for our *finest brand,” she said. 

The wines are being bottled by Accolade Wines, which signed a three-year business agreement with the retailer last October, at its Bristol-based bottling plant, Accolade Park.

The move comes a year after Tesco UK and group wine director Dan Jago said the *finest range had the brand credentials change consumers’ perceptions of wine packaging.

“We changed the world on screw cap and I think we can do more in bag-in-box,” he told The Grocer magazine at the time. 

The retailer had trialled wider used of 2.5L and 1.5L bag-in-box formats in express stores, but Jago admitted that although retailers had a responsibility to lead consumers, they could not force them to adopt something they weren’t naturally ready to do.

Boxed wine currently accounts for around 5% of the total value of still wine. Larger formats have seen sales decline, but retailers admitted that reducing the size of bag-in-box formats from 3L to 2.5L had played a key in tempting consumers to trial boxed formats. However industry experts say the UK has a long way to go to catch up to the Nordic countries, where boxed wine accounts for a far greater proportion of wine sales.