VITeff Innovation awards | Vipalux unveils a paper coiffe 100% compostable
Vipalux, a family-run business located in the heart of the Champagne vineyards, specialised in overcorks for sparkling wine bottles (Champagne, Crémant, Cuve Close), and has a presence throughout Europe, covering 1 in 4 bottles.
In 2018, Vipalux was approached by Billerud to develop a cap that represented a low-carbon alternative to aluminium, which led to 5 years of research to develop the paper cap. The paper cap has been be launched on the market in 2023, offering producers an alternative way to stand out from the crowd.
"The main innovation in our product lies in the material used, which is paper sourced from responsible forests in Europe. The main difficulty with this innovation is that it is not disruptive, despite the major change represented by this new material, which has very different properties to aluminium. Our proposal was to have a cap that was compostable, with a reduced carbon footprint, to enable producers to reduce the ecological impact of their bottles, and above all to have a cap made entirely from a single material", says Laurent Parizot, Vipalux's Sales Director.
It was a great success, and led the VIPALUX teams to present their innovation at the VITeff Innovation Awards, where they came out on top in the Process, Products and Consumables Technological Innovation category.
The innovation award reinforced our belief that our idea was an interesting one. Opinions expressed by user customers and by the jury, i.e. by non-users. It was also a source of added motivation to pursue development and come up with a product that could be a different choice from the current complex.
Every two years, the Innovation Awards are organised by EFFEVENT in partnership with Epernay Agglo and reward the most innovative projects in various categories.
The development of the paper cap continues. Indeed, Vipalux continues to experiment with different types of paper, shades and prints to improve their products. "We are also developing an aluminium-paper composite cap. The aim is to eliminate polyethylene. Today, the paper cap is presented not as a replacement but as an alternative to traditional caps. The paper cap is above all representative of a philosophy and a spirit of innovation.
