Will Brita’s New Reusable Aluminum Water Bottles Displace Single-Use Plastic?

After working within the packaging trade for 25 years, this I do know for certain: Innovating isn’t simple. A good suggestion is merely a beginning place. Implementing a brand new packaging innovation at scale requires persistence, expertise, and know-how. However much more importantly, it requires having the correct workforce in place — a workforce with the correct imaginative and prescient and the correct angle, as a result of nobody achieves this alone. Provide chains are far too complicated and interdependent for that to be possible.  

Take, for instance, Brita Premium Purified Water, a substitute for single-use plastic that’s taking up the $20 billion greenback bottled water trade. Brita Water is packaged in one hundred pc aluminum containers which can be extremely sturdy and refillable, leading to a product that’s reusable many instances over in addition to utterly recyclable.

There’s no plastic to be present in 4 and six-packs of Brita Water both: Multipacks of the bottles are grouped collectively utilizing a brand new paper-based provider system referred to as Fishbone, which is curbside recyclable. (Full disclosure: I’m a part of the workforce liable for commercializing Fishbone.) 

Brita Water was launched onto the market earlier this yr and is offered nationwide at Albertsons, Safeway, Harris Teeter, ACME, Lowe’s Meals, Tom Thumb, Randall’s Meals, Worth Chopper, Tony’s Finer Meals, IGA, and a rising listing of different retailers. It’s the results of a partnership between Brita — the Clorox model synonymous with pitchers that filter faucet water — and B Water & Drinks, a advantages company. Their partnership was formalized through a trademark producer’s licensing settlement within the spring of 2020, however in actuality, the analysis and growth that made this new sustainable providing attainable have been almost a decade within the making. 

“Brita Water is revolutionary within the sense that we’re trying on the complete answer for the buyer,” defined Jennifer Brooks, president of B Water & Drinks, in a telephone interview. “We’re very averse to any form of waste, which is why we love Fishbone and its minimal packaging. We’re not simply promoting water; we’re promoting an answer that’s a substitute for single-use plastic.” 

By way of sustainability and worth, Brita Water stands out from different water manufacturers — even these in skinny aluminum cans — due to the bottle’s sturdiness, permitting it to be refilled many instances. “The refillability issue alone is vital to lowering waste, whereas additionally saving shoppers cash,” stated Brooks. In comparison with costly stainless-steel bottles, Brita Water is affordably priced. 

The Improvements Wanted to Revolutionize How Individuals Drink Water 

For the fifth yr in a row, Individuals purchased extra bottled water than every other beverage. Surprisingly, analysis performed by Brita in 2018 revealed that 60 % of single-use plastic water bottles are literally consumed within the residence, not on the go. 

“When folks determine to purchase our filters and use them, they’re doing so to switch, usually talking, energetic and plentiful use of bottled water,” defined Eric Schwartz, Brita’s basic supervisor. “That’s why we consider now we have a particular function to play in serving to shoppers stay a extra sustainable life-style by offering choices that enable them to keep away from these single-use plastic bottles that find yourself in a waste stream.” 

Brita estimates that utilizing one in all its filter techniques in lieu of buying bottled water replaces as much as 1,800 bottles per family per yr. In that sense, it’s been a pacesetter in lowering using single-use plastic to drink water for over 40 years. Brita had been eager on growing a direct competitor to single-use plastic bottles for a while, however it wasn’t till representatives met Brooks at a commerce present in 2019 that the corporate dedicated to taking up the problem of disrupting an entrenched trade collectively. 

“B Water & Drinks had the technical experience and functionality to place the vessel collectively and ship great-tasting water, however not a model that resonates with shoppers. Pairing that every one collectively is admittedly the place we might make an affect,” stated Rory Wehrlie, director of strategic alliances, partnerships, and licensing at Brita.

The CEO of B Water & Drinks, James Skylar, started packaging water in aluminum cans in 2013. Involved concerning the presence of microplastics in water, he was motivated to invent and patent a system that will enable him to filter, sterilize, and hermetically seal water in aluminum cans with a lab-certified shelf life of fifty years. At this time, his different firm Blue Can Water provides canned water to FEMA, NASA, American Crimson Cross and the U.S. Division of Homeland Safety, amongst many others. 

Nevertheless it wasn’t simply B Water & Beverage’s success packaging and distributing great-tasting water in aluminum that in the end cemented their deal. Wehrlie and Schwartz knew they wanted a pacesetter who might coordinate amongst many various gamers to ship a novel and impactful closing product.   

“Once we have a look at companions, it’s loads about functionality, however it’s additionally concerning the folks, and Jennifer and James are very keen about sustainability. When you think about all the stakeholders and completely different entities concerned in making this come collectively, it truly is a masterpiece,” Wehrlie stated. 

Brita Water is exclusive partly as a result of even its cap is made totally of aluminum. When Brooks approached Trivium Packaging, the bottle provider for B Water & Drinks, with a request to design packaging that was 100% aluminum, they have been recreation to spend money on new equipment to make it occur. 

“Manufacturing one hundred pc aluminum beverage bottles with a screw cap is a really technically difficult product to supply,” stated Ryan Noward, head of the worldwide beverage division at Trivium, in an e mail. “Our R&D groups went by a big quantity of trial and error to deliver these bottles to life.”

That effort was warranted as a result of research present that increasingly shoppers are looking for out sustainable packaging and refusing to purchase merchandise whose packaging is dangerous to the setting. They’re additionally prepared to pay extra for eco-friendly options. This can be a pattern that has remained resilient within the face of the worldwide pandemic, Noward noticed, strongly indicating that the momentum for sustainability will not be a fad. 

Partnership and Innovation Come Collectively for More healthy Oceans 

Sustainability is what motivated Fishbone cofounders Kevin L’Heureux and Keith Elliott to start growing a plastic-free different to the plastic rings generally used to hold multipacks of drinks which can be identified to choke and kill marine life, clog landfills and waterways, and persist as ingestible microplastics manner again in 2014. 

“Hello-Cone rings, as they’re identified within the trade, are low-cost, light-weight, and simply saved. We knew we couldn’t make one thing that was simply pretty much as good; it needed to be higher,” L’Heureux advised me. “Our objective has at all times been to develop end-to-end options for purchasers which can be as dedicated to sustainability.” 

At this time, numerous provider and machine software iterations later, with a patent portfolio to match, Fishbone is displaying up on meals and beverage merchandise all over the world. It endorsed by the distinguished Ocean Basis for its sustainability advantages and advantageous for producers in that it will increase area for branding and consciousness. 

“We acknowledged at first how necessary this know-how could be to exhibit that society can substitute single-use plastic that results in the setting, and particularly within the ocean,” stated Ocean Basis president Mark J. Spalding. “There are a whole lot of functions that use plastic that merely shouldn’t. Fishbone has confirmed they don’t should.”

In 2020, Fishbone was licensed onto the market by Atlantic Packaging, the biggest privately held packaging firm in North America. Atlantic providers primarily Fortune 500 shopper merchandise corporations. Wes Carter, Atlantic’s third-generation president, is dedicated to ushering in a brand new period of sustainability throughout his trade.

Traditionally, he identified, packaging has been designed for operate, price, and comfort, with its environmental affect not even being on the radar. That should change, he advised me. In his view, the packaging trade has an “unbelievable accountability” to take possession of the merchandise it sells past the sale. That received’t be attainable with out cross-collaboration and the event of sustainable closed-loop techniques. 

“Truthfully, the important thing to all the [innovation] is folks. It is at all times folks. You’ve acquired to have extremely expert individuals who take pleasure in working collectively. And when you possibly can mix that with a state-of-the-art packaging testing know-how middle like now we have right here in Charlotte, you possibly can domesticate the trade of concepts the place the magic occurs,” Carter emphasised. “There’s nothing extra enjoyable than engaged on a workforce and creating a brand new system and a brand new product that adjustments the world. And sustainability is asking us to do this throughout the complete provide chain!” 

Commercializing a brand new packaging innovation requires that you simply think about the tools essential to manufacture it. Growing new tools is often required, so discovering the correct accomplice is crucial. Vital issues embody line speeds, price, and the footprint of the tools. 

Atlantic was capable of finding the proper accomplice in Serpa Packaging Options, a designer and producer of customized high-end tools for the pharmaceutical, meals, beverage, and automotive product industries, amongst others. Serpa is understood for guaranteeing that its machines will run at 98 % effectivity for twenty-four/7 operations. 

Aaron Metzler, Serpa’s nationwide gross sales and functions supervisor, advised me that Fishbone’s potential affect on the beverage trade made them wish to be part of the venture from the get-go. 

“It was extra of a query of, how can we develop this answer in order that any buyer at any level can have a system that will get this into {the marketplace} on the completely different charges that they require, be it a craft brewer or a big beverage producer,” he stated. 

Will Folks Drink Water They Can’t See?

Ingesting water out of aluminum is novel sufficient that customers aren’t certain what to make of it. The idea being, in case you’re sipping from aluminum, you’re almost definitely consuming beer or soda. Packaging water in aluminum clearly breaks with kind. However as a result of Brita is already synonymous with higher tasting filtered water, shoppers are a lot much less more likely to query what’s inside.

“The much less doubt within the shopper’s thoughts, the extra open they’re going to be to experimenting with a brand new product,” Schwartz identified.  

The outcome? Everybody wins. Licensing the Brita trademark means B Water has a neater time convincing retailers to run trials. Retailers can count on increased velocity. And Brita is ready to attain new shoppers at a lower cost level. 

“Having a accomplice that’s centered and impartial goes to get you additional, quicker in a aggressive setting that’s completely different from the one you’re working in,” Schwartz defined. 

Crucially, what the Brita model gives shoppers is belief — particularly, belief that water they will’t see will probably be of a top quality they count on and wish to drink. In any case, in contrast to plastic, aluminum bottles are opaque. The ability of Brita’s model is critical: Brita ranks highest amongst shoppers not solely as a water filtration model, however in comparison with high water manufacturers, interval. In line with Brooks, a whopping 94 % of American shoppers are aware of Brita. Because the premium water class turns into more and more crowded, model differentiation is extra necessary than ever.

There’s little doubt that commercializing a giant concept is a workforce effort. Growing a superbly packaged, environmentally sound different to single-use plastic water bottles wasn’t simple. Alongside the way in which, the varied group of people liable for bringing Brita Water to life needed to embrace being versatile, but in addition cussed. They overcame obstacles and circumvented roadblocks by harnessing the facility of their shared intention.