Flextank’s founder; Tony Flecknoe-BrownEngineer and vineyard owner, Tony Flecknoe-Brown pioneered the original concepts of using oxygen permeable plastics to advantage in the winemaking world. The story begins in 2001 in the latter stages of the Australian wine industries growth phase - where Tony, recognised & passionate mechanical engineer and innovative researcher, started to develop a concept of floating, flexible wine tanks made from polymer bags suspended in water. Innovative but not commercially viable, this early work led to further applications for plastics in the wine industry and eventually, to using the oxygen permeability properties of food grade plastics to winemaking advantage. It soon became obvious; Why not use this property to solve an obvious winemakers problem: mimicking and improving on, traditional, expensive oak barrels? Along with two fellow professional mechanical engineers, he developed and later patented the permeable vessel technology used by Flextank today and established the early stage of commercialisation. Tony was a career innovator in the plastics and food packaging industries and was credited with more than 50 patents in the plastics field, also publishing many articles and technical papers on his developments. In 1984, he jointly established the ASX listed public company, Hitek Limited (now Solace Ltd), to develop and license high-barrier plastics food can technology to the world’s can industry. Hitek eventually supplied Australian made plastic can manufacturing lines throughout the world. In 1993 the Hitek was bought by Tetra Pak, the European packaging giant and Tony became one of the three founding directors of Tetra Pak’s Plastics Packaging Division. In August 2010, Tony passed away - leaving behind him the brilliant and innovative idea of the wine maturation vessel: Flextank’s Cube, a precious heritage for the world of winemaking.
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