Bulldog has become a sustainable packaging frontrunner for many years. For instance, the men’s skincare brand just launched its new Ceramic Razor in the UK. It uses a handle made from kaolin clay, a natural, water-resistant material, and comes housed in fully recycled card packaging, aiming to challenge the razor industry to reduce plastic use. And the skincare range now also comes in brand-new, more sustainable packaging.
— We’ve worked really hard to introduce recycled packaging into our white tubes while maintaining our industry-first use of sugarcane plastic, says Cadbury. As such, our tubes are now made up of at least 62% post-consumer recycled (PCR) plastic and at least 27% plant-based sugarcane plastic. We have also lightweighted our tubes to reduce plastic by 16% in every single one of them. On top of material changes, we have also refreshed the designs to bring clear product benefits and ingredient callouts to the front of the pack. This was done to further improve shoppability and consumer understanding of our product offerings.
— The tubes are designed for 100% recyclability. Our tube sleeve is made from HDPE and our cap is made from PP plastic. The tubes are designed to keep these plastics isolated to separate components that can be pulled apart, processed, and recycled separately.
What was the hardest thing when doing this packaging revamp?
— Incorporating high levels of PCR content due to their propensity to have a grey/green colour to them. As our tubes are white we had to work closely with our partners to ensure there was minimal impact and minimal variation between production runs. Another challenge was ensuring our lightweighted tubes didn’t compromise on robustness or strength. We carried out comprehensive testing to ensure both this and that we removed the maximum amount of plastic while maintaining the same tube performance as before.
Do you think that the beauty industry talks enough about packaging? And can you push each other forward, towards greener solutions?
— Packaging and sustainability has rightfully become a big talking point within the industry over the last few years. That said, I always think there is more to be done, both from an industry and individual brand perspective. For us, we look at sustainability as an ongoing journey, one that we can and must constantly move forward on as new innovations come to market. I say this as consumers are no longer turning a blind eye to products that are unnecessarily harmful to the environment. They are increasingly wanting eco-conscious alternatives from brands that don’t view sustainability as an afterthought, Cadbury concludes.
