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Is glass bottle reuse viable across an entire value chain? That is the question being asked by 11 major players in the wine & spirits industry - brands, distributors and operators - who have just launched their first real-world trials, coordinated by Circul'R and Eco in Pack.

Why is the wine & spirits value chain tackling bottle reuse?

Packaging currently accounts for 30 to 40% of the carbon footprint of a full bottle. Faced with this reality, and with the targets set by the AGEC law - 10% of packaging reused by 2027 - the sector needs concrete, workable solutions.

Glass bottle reuse delivers a systematic environmental advantage over single-use glass from just 2 to 4 rotations. Putting it into practice, however, is complex: it requires close coordination between brands, distributors, logistics operators and washing facilities. No single player can do it alone.

That is why, in July 2025, Circul'R and Eco in Pack brought together an unprecedented coalition to explore collectively what would make a shared reuse model viable.

Who are the 11 members of the wine & spirits reuse coalition?

The coalition brings together:

• 8 major industry brands: Bacardi-Martini France, Campari France, Cordier, Giffard, Marie Brizard Wine & Spirits, Moët Hennessy, Pernod Ricard and Rémy Cointreau.
• 3 trade distributors: France Boissons, Richard Vins et Spiritueux and C10-Centrale Européenne de Distribution.

It also has the support of UMVIN and FFS, along with funding and operational support from Citeo and Adelphe.

How does the trial work in practice?

After several months of scoping - designing the deposit scheme, selecting test areas, organising logistics flows and choosing washing solutions - the coalition is now rolling out its first deposit-return products: Café de Paris (Cordier by InVivo), Cointreau (Rémy Cointreau), Crème de Fleur de Sureau and Menthe Pastille (Giffard), Get 27 (Bacardi), Picon (Campari Group), Ricard (Pernod Ricard), San José and William Peel (Marie Brizard Wine & Spirits).

The out-of-home consumption circuit

The trial began in early 2026 in restaurants and the café-hotel-restaurant sector, with the aim of reaching 50 establishments. It builds on distributors' existing delivery rounds:

• Richard Vins et Spiritueux collects in Île-de-France
• France Boissons operates in the Rennes area
• C10, through its member Prolidis, covers Corrèze

Establishments place empty bottles in dedicated crates, which are picked up during regular rounds, stored at logistics platforms, then taken to the Eco In Pack washing facility, which sorts, washes and returns them to the brands to be put back into circulation. Reuse therefore slots into logistics flows that are already up and running, without adding complexity for establishments.

The retail circuit

From June 2026, the full range of deposit-return products will be available in retail outlets, notably in partner stores in the Carrefour network. The return loop there is operated by Loop, which manages the return points, bottle traceability, sorting and storage before the bottles are taken to the Eco In Pack washing facility.

Why a shared model rather than an individual one?

This is the heart of the coalition's bet: pooling volumes, costs and learnings to make reuse economically and operationally viable where each player acting alone would come up against unreachable break-even thresholds.

The pooled elements include washing infrastructure, return logistics, collection standards and consumer communication tools. By reducing individual risk and reaching the necessary volumes faster, the collective model creates the conditions for scaling up.

Several indicators will be tracked throughout the pilot: return rate, volumes collected and washed, breakage, quality after washing, logistics costs, environmental performance and user take-up.

Two complementary areas of expertise at the helm

Circul'R, a circular economy consultancy, leads the coalition: collective governance, structuring of organisational models and economic modelling to align all players around a shared trajectory.

Eco in Pack brings its industrial and technical expertise in reuse, notably through its multi-format washing facility, capable of handling several million bottles a year.

According to Sixtine Jourde-Roussel, Head of Coalitions at Circul'R: "Reuse is a systemic challenge that cannot be met alone. By bringing brands, distributors and operators around the same table, this coalition allows us to pool our efforts, remove operational barriers and test a credible model that can be replicated across the whole value chain."