TricorBraun WinePak is a division of TricorBraun, the largest rigid packaging company in the United States. It’s a one-stop shop for providing bottles, closures, foils, and polylam to the wine, beer, cider, and spirits industries, including in-house quality assurance, and automated repacking. Its service representatives can take your idea from concept to reality, delivering everything you need, when you need it, at the right price. It’s a promise the company stands by in every way.
Founded in 1902 to provide recycled glass medicine jars to pharmacies, TricorBraun has since grown into a $1.3 billion business, with facilities across the United States as well as Europe, Mexico, China, and Canada. Each facility has its own niche, ranging from wine, beer, spirits, and food to cosmetics, agricultural containers, pharmaceutical, industrial, and everything in between.
Its WinePak division, based in Fairfield, Calif., is a 368,000-square-foot facility that focuses mostly on wine, with additional warehouses in Southern California, Oregeon, Washington state, and British Columbia. The company also has warehouses for beer in Colorado and Georgia, and for spirits in Fairfield (Calif.) and Atlanta (Ga.). It is a 100 percent distributor and the largest supplier of domestic and imported wine bottles in the United States. It supplies approximately 2,900 wineries, making up about 12 percent of TricorBraun’s business overall.
“When we work with customers,” says Thomas Deegan, Ph.D., manager of business development at TricorBraun WinePak, “we ensure they select a bottle that can run on their line and that it has a label panel that will fit their label. We confirm the selected bottle can hold the right pressure and that it fits in the company’s customized cases.” This is where automated repacking comes into play, helping smaller producers cut costs and save time. And to ensure there are no hiccups in the process, TricorBraun WinePak works with several suppliers that have matching bulk glass molds, so there’s backup available, if necessary, and any sort of shutdown in the process is prevented. “We also work closely with clients regarding bottling dates. Ours is the largest, full-level customer service and quality control company of its kind,” Deegan adds.
Today, the company is focusing on its online presence so it can offer a top-of-the-line experience for people interested in viewing its products as well as interacting with service representatives to answer any questions. It’s also implementing a company-wide initiative to move more strongly into the craft spirits space. “We have a team dedicated to that,” says Deegan. “A lot of producers are seeking custom bottles, and we’re seeing a lot of wineries expand into the spirits space.” He also notes more people are asking for screwcaps for wine bottles. “It’s very critical to get the finish right,” he notes. “We work closely with [closure specialists] Amcor Stevlin to ensure everything is right and there are no leaks.”
Another trend he sees is people experimenting with kegs and cans. “People will put higher-quality wine in kegs so they can ship it across the country and bars can put it on tap” he says. “And cans are aimed more toward the millennial generation, as are boxed wines.”
To give back to the industry, TricorBraun WinePak sponsors many associations whose funds support their community. For example, it’s been a major sponsor of the Sonoma County Wine Auction, held annually each Labor Day weekend, which includes several events and benefits a multitude of community charities.
As far as the future is concerned, “TricorBraun never sleeps,” says Deegan. “We’re always looking for new acquisitions to expand our reach of service.”
