Milk & More launches doorstep Coca-Cola Zero Sugar refill trial
Milk & More, the country’s leading online milk and grocery doorstep delivery service, has announced a UK industry first partnership with Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP), the world’s largest Coca-Cola bottler. This exciting partnership will trial the delivery, return, refill and reuse of Coca-Cola Zero Sugar glass bottles direct to and from customers’ doorsteps.
The trial will launch on 5th June, and last for eight to twelve weeks (while stocks last). Milk & More customers across South London and Central Southern England will have the opportunity to buy one litre glass bottles of Coca-Cola Zero Sugar, which once used can be rinsed and left on their doorstep for collection. Milk & More already delivers and collects a wide array of other re-useable glass bottles, including organic and standard milk, alternative milk, fruit juices, water, soft drinks and mixers, amounting to over 80 million units of zero waste packaging a year.
The Coca-Cola Zero Sugar bottles can be washed, refilled and re-used up to 20 times, resulting in an 82% smaller carbon footprint versus single use glass1. In addition, with Milk & More operating one of the largest UK electric vehicle delivery fleets, converting 10 million miles annually to electric miles, all charged from renewable energy sources, the positive emissions impact is even greater.
The partnership will enable CCEP to reach nearly 100,000 customers across the trial area and learn more about consumer understanding of refillable packaging, so that it can continue to further its efforts to reduce waste and greenhouse gas emissions.
Patrick Müller, CEO for Milk & More, comments: “The trial between Milk & More and Coca-Cola Europacific Partners offers another way for consumers to buy soft drinks and reduce the amount of packaging used. The two businesses share a commitment to work towards Net Zero and to do all we both can to support the environment. As the Home of Refills, we are therefore delighted to help Coca-Cola Europacific Partners understand more about consumer behaviour around returnable packaging, as this has been at the heart of our ethos for 130 years.
“Our customers want to be more sustainable, but they are busy people and need simple solutions to help them, so we are confident that they will welcome this trial as it offers them exactly the same service as they already have with Milk & More.”
Jo Padwick, Senior Sustainability Manager at Coca-Cola Europacific Partners commented: “We are excited to begin this partnership with Milk & More and to build on our previous trials to find innovative and sustainable ways of delivering soft drinks to consumers. Trials like these are an important step in our sustainability journey, helping us to find realistic solutions to reduce the amount of packaging we use in our everyday operations. Everything we do helps us take another step towards fulfilling our goal of net zero by 2040, and finding refillable solutions are a huge part of this.
“This partnership with Milk & More allows us to gather valuable insights into how consumers respond to return-based trials in comparison to recycling. The results of this trial will help us understand the potential of refillable services in GB as we push forward with our ambition of a World Without Waste and ultimately create a more circular economy.”
The trial with CCEP follows the retailer’s recent partnership with reusable packaging start-up Again, which sees Again clean packaging sold via Milk & More before selling it back to brands to be refilled. It also builds on Milk & More’s launch of its ‘Good Club at Milk & More’ in 2022, which provides groceries to consumers in reusable pots – a service which has sold nearly 60,000 zero waste items to date. The retailer also offers a range of zero waste environmentally friendly household products including washing up liquid and shampoo in refillable bottles and has sold 350,000 units since the range’s launch in 2020.
Patrick Müller, CEO for Milk & More, concludes: “Refillable products like our glass milk bottles and the one litre glass bottles of Coca-Cola Zero Sugar are one of the most effective ways we can all reduce waste and our carbon footprint. We believe that our customers are becoming more aware that refills feature fewer packaging materials, which means a smaller carbon footprint and will therefore embrace this trial as a way they can do even more to help the planet.”
Ninety-seven percent of all Milk & More’s sales by volume is already sold in packaging that is either reusable, recyclable or compostable, and its glass milk bottles are reused on average 28 times.
1. Based on packs being circulated on average 20 times (as evidenced in the CCEP German market), Source: ifeu European LCA Analysis Sept 2022
