Pioneering bottled water brand Belu today announces a huge innovation in the bottled water category – a 50% recycled PET bottle with a 46% carbon saving compared to its PET equivalent. This Belu 500ml bottle – the most popular size of on-the-move mineral water – uses more recycled plastics than any other plastic bottled water on the market in the UK today, making a UK first in the bottled water category.
Consumer research conducted for the launch of the new Belu bottle* shows that 95% of people believe that plastic water bottles should be made from recycled materials and the same percentage of people would buy a product such as this. The case for the new product is made even more compelling when out of the same people polled, just 29% of them would presume that plastic bottles are made from recycled plastics even though they assume that wine bottles, newspapers, tin cans and loo roll are made from recycled materials.
The truth is that more and more plastics are being recycled each year, as processes advance and more investment is made by big companies. But to date the bottled water sector has been criticised for not doing enough to recycle or to use recycled plastics in the manufacturing process. This new Belu product is exemplary both in innovation and technology, and is part of a long-term strategy to champion a future with better recycling and better processing of raw materials.
Belu has received overwhelming response from the grocery wholesale sector. Karen Lynch, Belu’s Managing Director, believes, “…that this launch is giving us the opportunity to go mainstream for the first time in Belu’s history. It’s hugely exciting to see the response from the trade, and we hope that our restaurant clients follow suit for the take-away market. This new launch has been very hard to get right – we’re working with plastics experts Nextek on it – and we are extremely proud to be the first to market with it. It’s time the rest of the industry followed suit.”
Arthur Potts Dawson, founder of The People’s Supermarket, commented: “Over the years I have followed Belu’s progress as a ground breaking, forward thinking business. I have used Belu as my bottled water supplier in my restaurants for 4 years now, and always look to them first for all of my water requirements. Now I have opened The People’s Supermarket my need for water has increased dramatically and again, I have turned to Belu for my supply. What has been fantastic is that Belu have developed an even more innovative approach to plastic bottles and I can’t wait to stock the 50% recycled plastic bottles in my fridges at The People’s Supermarket. Long may Belu lead the world of water into the 21st century”.
So what are the benefits of drinking water from a 50% recycled PET bottle? Using recycled plastic saves energy and reduces the carbon footprint of each bottle. It also reduces consumption of finite resources like oil, from which new plastic is made. Better still, with this new product, Belu is using materials that might otherwise end up in landfill.
Belu’s new rPET plastic bottle will be available through wholesalers and cash and carries from the end of September.
*Belu water polled 50 consumers of bottled mineral water in August 2010.
For wholesale enquiries, please contact Richard Martin on 0781 490 2756.
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