BERRY Global Group has teamed up with Abel & Cole, a specialist in sustainable food delivery, to supply bottles for its Club Zero Refillable Milk delivery service.
The new polypropylene (PP) bottles can reportedly be refilled up to 16 times before being recycled.
“When it comes to packaging materials, plastic is often seen as the enemy,” said Hugo Lynch, sustainability lead at Abel & Cole. “But we challenged ourselves to ask if it was better to use glass, which is heavier and more energy-intensive to make, or to go against the grain.”
Berry explained the bottle design is optimised to support Abel & Cole’s eight-stage cleaning process, which eliminates the drying stage, reducing the risk of bacterial contamination. Bottles undergo an eight-stage washing process when returned, ensuring thorough cleaning before being conveyed to the cleanroom for refilling.
The bottles were designed without a handle, reducing ‘trap points’ where bacteria might gather and allowing for easy drainage. Bottles were optimised to suit Abel and Cole’s existing factory equipment – for example, the bottle was reverse-engineered to fit the existing low density polyethylene (LDPE) cap used for Abel & Cole milk bottles.
Berry added that it conducted ‘rigorous’ chemical tests to ensure PP provided the strength and durability to undergo high processing temperatures and prevent breakage that is ‘common to glass’.
The label contains consumer communication to encourage returns and also provides an ‘early warning’ system for each bottle’s end of life. This is because labelled bottles can be washed up to 16 times before the label shows signs of degradation, meaning Abel & Cole can track bottle life and ‘retire’ each bottle when it is ready for recycling.
The first samples were 3D printed for migration testing in June 2023, and the first bottles shipped to customers in October. Since launch, the one litre Club Zero Refillable Milk bottle has seen a 20% uplift in sales week-on-week. The current return rate is 64%, with Abel & Cole targeting a minimum of 75%.
“We are committed to delivering innovative, reusable packaging solutions that help our customers make transformative leaps toward their sustainability goals,” said Sue Springett, senior marketing manager for Berry Agile Solutions. “Through circular partnerships like these, we unpack complexities and help our customers understand what’s possible for the plastic substrate.”
