SIG and Hill-Smith Family Estates win Sustainability and Packaging & Design Awards for recycle-ready bag-in-box wine packaging

28 November 2025

SIG and Hill-Smith Family Estates have been recognised with both the Packaging & Design Award and the Sustainability Award at the 2025 Wine Industry Impact Awards for their collaboration to bring Australia’s first recycle-ready bag-in-box packaging for wine to market.

This dual recognition comes during a landmark year for the Wine Industry Suppliers Association (WISA), which is celebrating 25 years of championing innovation, collaboration and technical excellence throughout the wine industry.

The transition to a recycle-ready bag-in-box packaging solution is made possible using a bag made of SIG Terra RecShield, a mono-material film with a newly formulated polymer structure that replaces the conventional multi-layer structure typically used in bag-in-box packaging. This allows the bag, tap and carton to meet Australia’s recyclability criteria, and align with the Sustainable Packaging Guidelines of the Australian Packaging Covenant Organization (APCO) and Australia’s 2025 National Packaging Targets.

In their assessment, the WISA judging panel described the solution as “a landmark advancement for wine packaging sustainability, combining technical excellence, industry collaboration, and measurable environmental benefits to set a new national standard for recyclable design”.

The innovation was developed and manufactured at SIG’s Adelaide facility in close partnership with Winesmiths, a Hill-Smith Family Estates-owned brand and leader in the cask wine category for over four decades.

Carmen Houston, ANZ Head of Marketing & Sustainability at SIG: “These awards highlight the impact of genuine industry partnerships. Delivering Australia’s first recycle-ready bag-in-box wine packaging has only been possible through deep collaboration. Working with Hill-Smith Family Estates enabled us to provide the industry with meaningful packaging improvements. We are honored that WISA has recognized its significance.”

Karl Martin, CEO of Hill-Smith Family Estates: “This recognition reflects Hill Smith Family Estates commitment to advancing sustainable packaging through collaboration. Sustainability is central to our future, and packaging plays a crucial role in that journey. Partnering with SIG to help commercialize this innovation allows us to accelerate meaningful change for both our business and the wider industry. We are incredibly proud to be recognized alongside them.”

SIG Group and Hill-Smith Family Estates plan to build on the momentum from the awards as Winesmiths prepares to launch the new recycle-ready pack to Australian shelves in early 2026.

 

Source: sig.biz