Frugalpac, the British sustainable packaging company behind the exciting innovation, will produce the Frugal Bottles from a purpose-built ‘clean room’ at the home of Roland Plastics.
The two firms have been working closely over the last four years, in a bid to refine the bottle and ensure it could be market-ready for a global drinks industry keen to improve its environmental reputation.
Launched earlier this year, the Frugal Bottle is made from 94% recycled paperboard, with a food-grade liner. To date, they have been produced at Frugalpac’s Ipswich facility, where the company also creates and supplies other recycled paper-based products.
The scaling up of production will see Frugal Bottles produced at the Roland Plastics site and has seen additional recruitment of a dedicated tool-setter, to support bottle production.
Malcolm Waugh, CEO Frugalpac, said: “As Frugalpac continues to grow to meet the worldwide demand for our Frugal Bottle, putting our first bottle assembly machine on the Group Roland site made perfect sense.
“We have now reduced the distance the parts travel from production to final assembly and we’re ready to meet our global orders.
“The Roland team have gone above and beyond to support us setting up our new automated production line for this innovative sustainable packaging.”
Production, assembly and logistics for the Frugal Bottle will all be co-ordinated from the Wickham Market facility. The site already houses a workforce of 20.
Jonathan Paul, Director of Roland Plastics, said: “This innovative product is a perfect fit for our company as we are striving to make injection moulding sustainable, and to work alongside the very businesses who take an innovative approach to the use of recyclable materials at every stage of design.
“We’re really pleased to be welcoming Frugalpac to our site and look forward to this collaboration enabling the brand to reach its potential worldwide.”
Frugal Bottle is just 83g in weight, making it five times lighter than a normal glass bottle. It has a carbon footprint 84% lower than the typical bottle. It uses up to 77% less plastic than a plastic bottle.
Already, the product has attracted huge interest among wine and spirit producers in particular.
Roland Plastics has a long heritage in supplying bespoke injection moulded plastics to small and large organisations. The company started life as Girdlestone Pumps in the 1960’s.
