Reduce your material waste with one of these clever new beverage systems.

Developed by an Aussie inventor named Andrew Hunter, the Op Tik system means you can pour wine and pre-mix beverages through a draught system, just like beer and cider.

The benefits of Op Tik, beyond the obvious reduction in costs (it’s cheaper to buy wine and RTDs in a keg), you won’t have to deal with getting rid of mountains or bottles, cans and cartons. Wine doesn’t oxidise when served in this way and consumers can actually see what they’re buying due to the ‘sight glass’; the clear canister that sits atop the dispensing font. For wine buffs, that’s a big advantage as you don’t have worry about whether the wine has gone off sitting in a half empty bottle.

Any venue that already has a draught system in place can be retrofitted to install an Op Tik and the system is flexible enough to allow the venue to feature different wines and RTD’s every week.

According to Hunter, draught systems for wine are already big in North America and Canada and are rapidly gaining the attention of retailers here. In terms of availability, the import market for keg wine is growing rapidly and on a local scale, many Australian and New Zealand wineries are producing kegged wine as well. Swings and Roundabouts in the Margaret River region and Treasury Wine Estates are just two examples of wineries packaging wine in this way in Australia.

When it comes to serving beverages at festivals or large scale events, this system significantly reduces material waste which is an increasingly important part of the sustainability requirements for many remote locations.