02 Jan 2026 The flat wine bottle – Packamama – now made in SA!
Who said wine bottles had to be round? What a great eco-friendly addition to the SA wine packaging arena…!
Packamama, the multi award-winning sustainable wine packaging company, has announced the launch of its South African manufacturing operations in collaboration with two local market leaders: Safripol, a polymer producer, and Polyoak, a packaging manufacturer.
The announcement follows a successful period of stealth production in Cape Town following the Cape Wine 2025 expo. With the focus intentionally left on South African wine during the biennial wine industry trade fair, Packamama chose to formally announce the launch and partnership at the end of 2025.
“Packamama’s iconic eco-flat wine bottle is now proudly manufactured in Cape Town using South African recycled PET (rPET) resin, supplied by Safripol and produced at Polyoak’s world-class facility,” says the press release.
The bottles deploy Packamama’s bespoke material stack, specifically engineered to protect wine quality and shelf-life while delivering a substantially lower carbon footprint than traditional glass.
The collaboration also actively supports Safripol’s “Let’s Plastic Responsibly” recycling campaign, reinforcing the role of properly collected and recycled plastic as part of a circular economy.
Crucially, the initiative keeps manufacturing and bottling jobs local, ensuring value remains within South Africa’s packaging ecosystem rather than being exported offshore.
Calling for producer/retailer interest
Since commencing production, Packamama asserts it has already successfully manufactured a six-figure volume of bottles, achieving consistent, high-quality output and demonstrating readiness to scale, and is thus now welcoming interest from SA producers and international retailers seeking sustainable, locally made wine packaging solutions.
Packamama’s eco-flat bottle is already known across ten international markets and has won multiple awards for sustainability, design and performance. The SA launch marks a significant step in the company’s strategy to localise production in major wine-producing regions.
SA is currently the world’s seventh-largest wine producer (OIV, Nov 2025) and the sixth most popular wine country among UK consumers (WSTA, Dec 2025), making local manufacturing of next-generation wine bottle packaging both strategically and economically compelling.
Santiago Navarro, CEO & Founder of Packamama, said: “This is exactly how we believe sustainable packaging should scale – locally made, commercially proven, and built with world-class partners.
“Polyoak and Safripol represent the best of South African packaging and polymers, and together we are showing that you can protect wine quality, protect jobs, and slash emissions at the same time.
“We’re proud to be producing Packamama bottles in Cape Town using South African recycled PET. We have already proven the quality at scale, and we are excited to welcome more producers into this next chapter for South African wine.”
Source: Packamama