Selling soft drinks without packaging

Bottle and can designs have always been vital to the branding of their contents.

Yet dispense ‘fountains’ are also a key part of the tradition and these have translated into homes as well as vending.

Free dispense of water has been added in recent trials.

It is almost as if soft drinks have been trying to reinvent themselves beyond their packaging.

Now, the industry has taken a new twist with reusable bottles for PepsiCo’s Tropicana in Paris.

This is a truly radical and inventive approach, using Terracycle’s Loop ‘circular shopping platform’.

The idea is that I can order my orange juice, alongside my Quaker Cruesli, online. The products are delivered in packs specially designed for durability. When I receive my next order, I return my used packs for cleaning and reuse by PepsiCo.

Once scaled up, the logistics would be very demanding, but one can imagine all kinds of synergies with a wider range of products and ultimate environmental benefit despite the delivery factor.

Back in the 1980s, I was the Liquid Milk Director of the Dairy Trade Federation with responsibilities for Britain’s doorstep deliveries of milk, which accounted for more than 80% of national sales using electric vehicles.

Plus ça change …