Abstract Purpose: The aim of this thesis is to explore the impact of environmental friendly wine packageson wine consumption in Sweden. While there are many different factors influencing this issue,the overall focus of this thesis has been on the perception of the quality of 'Green wine packaging'on behalf of the consumers. Method: A quantitative approach in form of an online survey was followed by an qualitativeapproach in form of semi-structured interviews. While the quantitative approach was the mainapproach, the qualitative approach was used for further interpretation. Conclusions: Despite a great environmental awareness and a great engagement in recyclingactivities in Sweden, the results of this study shows that consumer prefer wine in traditional glassbottles. Quality is considered to be the most important element when purchasing wine and itappears that consumer perceive a low level of quality of wine in Green packages which in turnlowers their aesthetical and hedonic expectations. The quality of the wine appear also to be moreimportant than the environmental issue.

Thesis (MBA (Business Management))--University of Stellenbosch, 2010.

Natural corks have long been used as wine closures. However, they are associated with causing multiple adverse effects to the wine they are attempting to preserve. Alternative closures such as synthetic corks and screw caps were developed in order to reduce and/or eliminate these problems. However, the major cause of concern regarding these closures is of consumers' acceptance. The effect of how three types of closures (Natural Cork, Synthetic Cork and Screw Cap) affected wine consumers' perceptions of the quality of wine was examined in this study. This project was divided into two experiments. The first experiment determined if frequent wine consumers could detect sensorial differences between the three closure types. The second experiment ascertained if and how regular wine consumers' perceptions were altered based on the type of closure with which the wine samples were bottled. It was determined that the wine consumers could not significantly detect a difference between any of the three closure type samples based only on sensory stimuli. The results from the second experiment found for the Chardonnay samples, the knowledge that the wine samples came from a natural cork or a synthetic cork did not significantly affect the liking, quality or purchase intent scores. However, when the panelists knew that the sample was bottled with a screw cap, they thought it was of lower quality, were less willing to buy a wine like the sample and they lowered the price they were willing to pay. For the Merlot samples, knowledge that the sample came from a natural cork caused the wine consumers to significantly increase both their opinions of the quality of the wine and the amount they were willing to pay for the wine. When they knew that the sample was bottled with a screw cap, they reduced the price they would pay for the wine. / Graduation date: 2005