Leading sustainable online grocer Abel & Cole has been stealing the limelight recently with an innovation breakthrough part funded by UKRI’s Smart Sustainable Plastic Packaging (SSPP) Challenge, delivered by Innovate UK.
The firm launched its Club Zero Refillable Milk offering last October in the UK’s first refillable plastic milk bottle, for which it recently won both the Gold Award for ‘Sustainable Innovation of the Year’ in the Environmental Packaging Awards 2024, and the Sustainability Initiative of the Year in the Grocer Gold Awards.
Club Zero Refillable Milk, which joined Abel & Cole’s growing refillables range, uses a ground-breaking refillable packaging innovation that is estimated to save 450,000 single-use plastic milk bottles (23 tonnes of plastic) and 60 tonnes of carbon each year (compared to the glass bottle equivalent).
Representing a collaborative effort over a several years with partners including Berry Global, Campden BRI and Berkeley Farm Dairy, the 100% polypropylene Club Zero Refillable Milk bottle uses existing packaging resource and technology, safely allows for multiple refills, and is completely recyclable. According to Abel & Cole, it cuts the carbon footprint of the company’s single-use milk bottles in half after just four returns.
“We’re incredibly proud to have won the award for our ground-breaking Club Zero Refillable Milk bottle,” said Hugo Lynch, Sustainability Lead at Abel & Cole. “Plastic is often seen as the enemy, 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. We want to thank everyone who supported us and worked so hard over the three years of testing it took to crack refillable milk bottles in plastic.”
SSPP Challenge Director Paul Davidson commented:
“We are delighted that this genuinely ground-breaking project from Abel & Cole has received recognition. Innovations like this, that make refill models work for high volume everyday products, are essential if we are to make an impact on reducing plastic waste and using plastic more sustainably.”
