Packaging and Logistics Deliver Climate Wins for Clif Family Winery & Farm

In the food and beverage industry, packaging must convey both the qualities of the product and the values of the company behind it. Clif Family Winery, which produces and ships both wine and food items, has instilled their values in their packaging by rethinking the makeup of the product packaging itself. Their sustainability journey has led them to unlock climate wins, across packaging and full value chain logistics from sourcing to customer fulfillment and product life cycle.

Their change process started small, with a single product and an opportunity to improve both product margins and reduce carbon emissions.

“We had to rethink the quality myth that artisanal foods need to be packaged in robust containers in order for consumers to buy them,” says Sarah Richmond, Operations Director at Clif Family Winery. “While everyone loved the look of our chocolate tin containers, the cost of goods was high, and they were very labor intensive to produce. More pressingly, the containers added to the product’s carbon footprint in a way that didn’t align with the organization’s values. Finding an alternative that customers would still love was Sarah’s challenge. With the help of local fabricators, internal support, and a customer base who was receptive to clear and transparent communication, she made it happen, by switching to a lightweight recyclable paper container made in the USA with a Food Grade liner and compostable inner pouch – all of which aligned with the company’s Sustainable Purchasing Guidelines.

“Product margins actually increased because we were able to eliminate hours of labor on the production floor with the preprinted paper tubes and decrease logistical costs by collaborating with local suppliers and co-packers who were aligned with our carbon footprint goals.”

Small Wins Scale to Major Victories

With a small win under their belt, Sarah and the team decided to tackle an even heavier challenge next – wine bottles. Heavy glass bottles are a marker of quality in the wine industry, which meant that considering a change to the vessel was met with internal resistance in the organization. But for a winery that ships a lot of wine, these bottles were weighing both on the company’s logistics bill and its carbon footprint.

After a successful trial of the lightweight glass in December 2022, they began to fully transition their wine portfolio to lighter packaging. It inspired the team to also move away from the decorative foil on the top of the bottles, previously deemed a necessity from a design standpoint and branding opportunity. In fact, they found customers didn’t miss them, and if anything, removing the decorative foils set them apart on a crowded shelf. They went on to remove the heavy metal bike cog appliques from the bottles as well, which were made in Argentina. Another win-win for reducing cost and their climate footprint.

“Replacing the bike cogs with a screen printed alternative and transitioning to lightweight glass, allowed us to reduce our case weight by almost 8 pounds, which was a cost savings we could pass along to our customers.” In addition, by using less materials they were able to better maximize pallet layouts and reduce transportation costs.

Since these successes, the team has also started shipping orders themselves rather than using a third-party shipper, which allowed them to continue to improve quality and reduce fulfillment costs. Additionally, they implemented ground shipping as their default shipping method rather than 2-day air for more than 96% of their shipments – a shift that can reduce carbon emissions more than 90% on a per package basis [Check out the SME Climate Hub Action Guide – “Reduce Emissions from Freight and Goods Transport”]. The additional transit time associated with ground shipping opened the door to introduce a fully recyclable insulated thermal shipper box to protect the wine during transit.  

Taking charge of their fulfillment allowed them to seize additional opportunities. Key wins include:

• Reduced size of master cases to maximize cases per pallet and lower carbon footprint
• Transitioned to working with carriers within the SmartWay transportation network
• Went plastic-free by implementing two solutions for packing tape, including recyclable paper tape and a bio-based clear tape made from plants
• Implemented a “Second Life” packaging program that reuses packaging that would otherwise go to landfill

When it comes to packaging, their philosophy asks, “What can we remove while still upholding the quality of our brand.”

By communicating proactively with customers throughout these trials, the team was able to make the transition with essentially no pushback. While there can be friction amidst the balancing point of sustainability and design, Sarah says the two are becoming more fluid within the company. The team has even been able to mobilize their co-packers and suppliers as allies, who are now helping take steps like printing best buy and harvest dates directly on jars and packaging instead of adding this information on a sticker.

Codifying Climate Wins

Recognizing the team sport nature of their climate wins, Sarah worked to codify supplier and purchasing considerations across the organization. Adding clauses around resource consumption, pollution prevention, and waste minimization to Clif Family’s Supplier Code of Conduct formalized Clif Family’s communication with their suppliers around expectations to measure, prevent, and minimize air emissions. They now only work with US manufacturers, vendors and suppliers for all of their food packaging, which must be recyclable, compostable or made with a minimum of 30% Post-Consumer Waste (PCW).  For copackers, or the suppliers who manufacture and package Clif Family products, Sarah developed and implemented a Copacker Agreement to communicate and scale packaging wins across their product portfolio. The SME Climate Hub offers action guides and templates to help communicate climate expectations to suppliers.

Documentation has also been important for internal communications and expectation setting. These guidelines are memorialized and communicated to all employees via Clif Family’s Sustainable Purchasing Guidelines. They provide employees with a shared understanding of not only Clif Family’s values and philosophy, but how to apply them across everyday purchasing decisions spanning everything from ingredients to office supplies, to promotional collateral.

Coordinating Throughout the Organization

“One of the challenges for any small business is we don’t have one dedicated person who oversees sustainability,” says Linzi Gay, President of Clif Family Winery. “It ends up being a little bit of all of our jobs.”

Though the 90-acre farm and winery has been B Corp certified since 2023, the process of establishing a robust internal system to explore, plan, execute and measure sustainability efforts continues to evolve.

“We do a lot of things related to sustainability, but we don’t necessarily spend a lot of time quantifying those things.”

Making the SME Climate Commitment helped focus Clif Family’s climate work. Linzi and the team knew they needed a good baseline, targets, and measurement strategies, but initially, they didn’t have a system in place to track the packaging efficiency changes. As part of their B Corp certification, they instituted an environmental management system, which allowed them to better document changes and goals across the organization. As they’ve continued tracking these impacts, the team took the extra step to bring in a consultant to help put emissions numbers to the work they were doing. This helped create a useful framework for the team to make progress with logical steps, goals, and accountability. This also allowed Clif to report to the SME Climate Hub in 2023. For businesses without the resources for consulting support, the SME Climate Hub Carbon Calculator and it’s upcoming resources can be useful.

Clif Winery identified a few key insights and results of their sustainable wine packaging efforts from 2022-2024:

• Fossil Fuel Emission Reduction Total – 33,581 kg CO2e
• Land Change Emission Reduction Total – 1,426 kg CO2e 
• Biobased Emission Reduction Total – 186 kg CO2e
• Transportation of Goods Reduction Total – 7,057 kg CO2e 

• Glass – Transitioning to lightweight glass accounts for 42.8% of their total emissions reduction
• Metal Cogs/Foils/Screwcaps – Removing foils, screw caps, and metal bike cogs accounts for 32.8% of their total emissions reduction
• Cork – Adding the bio-based composite cork and universally adopting corks as their bottle closure accounts for 1,408 kg CO2e Land Change emissions reduction
• Kegs – Introducing stainless steel kegs contributed to a reduction of 2,357.3 kg CO2e in fossil fuel emissions and 20 kg CO2e reduction in both up-and downstream transportation emissions

Combined, these reductions equal 42.2 metric tons of CO2e avoided, which is equivalent to taking 10 cars off the road for one year or allowing 700 seedlings to grow for 10 years!

Finding the balance between doing the work and measuring the impact has been challenging but rewarding. It’s helped them back up some of their packaging choices with data, especially around the fact that perceived markers of quality and price point may not be as accurate as industry wisdom suggests.

“It’s important for the consumer and it’s important for us to be able to put a little more authenticity around the story we’re telling. It’s also important to lead the discussion on sustainability in our close-knit community in Napa.”

Rather than measurement for the sake of reporting, Clif focuses on measurement as a tool for management. In their fulfillment warehouse, they weighed all trash, compost, and recycling at the end of every day back in 2022. Since doing this, they’ve been able to recycle 96% of their waste, compost 2%, and send the remaining 2% to the landfill.

For Linzi, Sarah, and the rest of the team, their first focus is on selling more products, but having these additional narratives and backing actions has also been beneficial for building their brand and credibility in a crowded market. However, they still have room to grow, especially as a small team.

“For us, the challenge is keeping the rigor on it. We all have other jobs and other things to do.”

Outside Pressures Helped Motivate Change

“Some of our food packaging was made oversees,” Sarah says, remembering early packaging change conversations, “and so much of that supply chain was disrupted during COVID.” This, she says, was part of the catalyst for the organization to start building relationships with U.S. manufacturers.

But it wasn’t just supply chain tangles and delays that led to the switch. Customers were also starting to ask better questions and demand more transparency from manufacturers.

“Some retailers have become very specific with their standards, and it’s getting tighter,” Linzi reports. Being B Corp certified has helped them overcome many of those barriers, but they are still working constantly to improve, and those efforts now extend into their supply chains.

“We created a Supplier Code of Conduct,” Sarah says, “that outlines our high standards for supply chain expectations.” These expectations continue to evolve as well, and have led to valuable, mutually beneficial collaborations that promote transparency and accountability within the supply chain.

But even before global disruptions, the team was thinking about small internal steps, like consolidating staff office supply orders to reduce packaging waste and setting expectations with employees about the importance of this work. These simple efforts, Sarah reports, have led to behavior change and created meaningful buy-in among employees. And there are always multiple layers of return to their upgrades. Moving jam production in-house, for example, helped reduce food waste, improved product quality, and created a heavenly smell that helps employees stay connected to the products and their customers.

Going forward, the team is continuing to play an active part in conversations around wine bottle reuse, which they see as the next radical step in disrupting packaging waste reduction for wine. Though they see the possibility as a heavy lift, they are also hearing a lot of buzz about it locally and may participate in a wine bottle reuse trial in the future.

Share Your Story
As a small business, Clif Family Winery provides invaluable insights on taking climate action. Interested in sharing your own climate journey for potential inclusion as a business spotlight? Make the SME Climate Commitment and get in touch.