Increasing efficiency & sustainability in online retail glass packaging delivery

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The overriding vision for this project is to develop more environmentally sustainable, more effective and labour efficient packaging for small glass bottles and employ them in a new ecommerce store for our soft drinks which can use lower quality fruit and herb ingredients from UK fruit & herb processors. This will support the processors in the UK by reducing waste and assist our drink manufacturing business which has lost 60% of its turnover due to Covid-19\.Key objectives for this project are:1\. Collaborating with our packaging supplier to develop an innovative shipping packaging solution for small, glass bottles for delivery by courier which is more environmentally sustainable, labour efficient and effective in delivering its contents safely that the current options.2.Through our packaging supplier, make this innovative solution available to producers of other products in small glass bottles to improve their online delivery proposition.3\. Launch an online platform to allow customers to purchase our drinks online and have them delivered by courier, diversifying our own route to market.4\. Work closely with our ingredient suppliers to identify excess or waste produce to maximise their use in our soft drinks, therefore improving returns and efficiencies of UK fruit and herb processors.The main areas of focus for this project are two fold. Firstly, the development and successful launch of our ecommerce platform. Without this there would be no need to develop the second area of focus, a new shipping packaging solution for small glass bottles.Current shipping packaging options for small bottles are either to wrap each bottle individually in plastic bubble wrap or use cardboard dividers within the cardboard box. The first option is not environmentally sustainable and labour intensive and both options still produce breakages in transit, costing time and money.Our concept is to develop a cardboard die cut which holds each bottle within the cardboard shipping outer. It reduces the opportunity for bottles to become loose in transit and smash against each other and keeps bottles away from the edge of the box where they are also at risk of being smashed in transit.Our own research and our packaging supplier have not found anything like this on the market and will require their in house packaging innovation centre to develop the product.