Ever wondered how Wine is transported? When you think of wine and buying wine, you immediately think of wine in bottles, right? Wrong! Let’s look at the various wine transportation options. There are several ways to transport bulk wine shipments from wine producers to its final destination. Boxed bottled wine, wine transported in ISO Tanks and Flexitank are the most popular ways to transport wine.

Wine Bottles

Bottled wine is the most obvious. Wine is produced by a winery; it is bottled on the premises of the winery, labeled, boxed and shipped all over the world to its destination of sale. Using this method has its pros and cons. Typical advantages of this method of shipping are that there is very little chance of product contamination. When the wine arrives at its final destination, it is immediately ready for sale, being a convenience for both the producer and buyer of the wine. The disadvantage is the possibility of breakage of the bottles, cost of packaging and transportation. The producer also requires a greater layout of cost, for bottling, labeling, and packaging on the production side.

ISO Tanks

What is an ISO Tank? It is a tank that is manufactured according to ISO standards (International Organisation for Standardisation). In the wine industry, these tanks are typically made of a stainless steel outer and inner layers that meet the specification for transporting wine. Advantages of using an ISO Tank for the transportation of wine is that the tank can be re-used, greater volumes of product can be transported at a time, and product temperature can be controlled. Considering the disadvantage of using this method to transport wine, is that the vessel has to be professionally cleaned after each wine shipment and a cleaning certificate issued. ISO tanks are also large and heavy, making transportation cumbersome.

Flexitank

As a consumer of wine, you can compare a Flexitank to “Box Wine”. Box wine consists of an outer package, which is the wine box, that provides protection for the product inside of the box. The wine inside of the box is contained in a wine bag fitted with a little valve, which allows the consumer to drain it from the bag. Box wine usually is more cost effective for the consumer to purchase.

Now, think big! Flexitank works on the same principle. Flexitank is a cost-effective and modern product for the storage and transportation of non-hazardous liquids. Wine is one of the products that is being transported using Flexitank. The Flexitank is installed in a 20ft ISO shipping container. The Flexitank is manufactured of several inner layers of food-grade Polyethylene (PE) and an outer layer of tubular Polypropylene (PP). This outer layer is seamless, reducing the risk of rupturing. Flexitank is manufactured in sizes from 16cbm to 24cbm. Wine Producers and Bulk Wine Buyers make use of Flexitank, as it reduces the requirement of packaging and reduces the cost of storage, and transportation. Since the product is safely contained in the Flexitank and further protected by the ISO shipping container, this method has opened doors for bulk wine transporting in recent years. Wine can now be shipped all over the world via freight ship or road, using this modern, cost-effective method.

Source: http://www.tsflexitank.com/ftank.html

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