Organic veg box operator Abel & Cole has won Sustainability Initiative of the Year for its ‘Proud to Choose Plastic’ milk refill scheme.

The Judges for this year’s Grocer Gold Awards  said the intervention “had the potential to deliver a massive impact in the battle against packaging waste, said our judges”. 

Under the Club Zero scheme, organic milk is bottled in PP reusable plastic bottles at Berkley Farm Dairy and delivered to customers as part of customers’ weekly Abel & Cole shop. Customers are asked to rinse out the bottles and put the cap back on, and leave the bottle inside the empty cardboard veg box, ready for collection. When they arrive back at the dairy, the bottles are inspected and then refilled for their next customer delivery.

Abel & Cole says that bold – and perhaps unexpected – decision to opt for plastic follows a three-year research programme and real-world experiments. Commenting at the time of the scheme’s launch, Hugo Lynch, Abel & Cole’s sustainability lead, commented: “When it comes to packaging materials, plastic is often seen as the enemy. But we challenged ourselves to ask if it was better to use than glass, which is heavier and more energy-intensive to make, or to go against the grain.”