EXCLUSIVE: Procter & Gamble (P&G) has joined the Paper Bottle Company (Paboco) collaboration and will launch its first paper pulp-based bottles in European markets next year, the firm has announced this week.
Paboco officially launched in October 2019 as the result of a collaboration between renewable material company BillerudKorsnäs and plastic bottle manufacturing specialist Alpla. Its ‘paper bottle community’ of businesses includes big names such as The Coca-Cola Company, Carlsberg, L’Oreal and The Absolut Company as well as new member P&G.
Speaking exclusively to edie, P&G’s senior vice-president of R&D for the global fabric and home care division, Jerry Porter, revealed that the company has been working behind the scenes with Paboco for around 12 months. The result of this work is the company’s first prototype paper bottle for the Lenor brand, which will be fine-tuned before a pilot launch of 100,000 units in Western European markets next year.
Porter said: “We’re doing this test-and-learn to understand, across the whole value chain, what the key learnings are. 2022 is really our first step. We’re expecting to need to make adjustment but the intent is to move this across more places and products, especially as we move to more generations.”
“We want to move as fast as we can.”
Porter was unable to disclose which markets the bottles will be trialled in at this stage, or information about when, precisely, in 2022 customers can expect to see them on shelves.
However, he outlined the main challenges in switching from a plastic bottle to the Paboco format for laundry products, like Lenor fabric enhancer. The current format is the company’s first-generation design and consists of a pulp-based paper outer and an internal barrier made from 100% recycled PET. The Lenor bottles maintain a plastic cap. Overall, the result is a 30% reduction in plastic used by weight.
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