Spadel and DS Smith launch innovative 5-litre packaging

Spadel and DS Smith launch a new 5 litre package that has been innovatively designed to ensure it’s not only practical, but sustainable too. The respective market leaders, who specialize in natural mineral water and sustainable packaging solutions, joined forces to create the Eco Pack. The octagonal box comprises of cardboard and a flexible inside plastic bag that has room for 5 litres of liquid. Its efficient use of materials enables a 65% reduction in plastic* while also extending the waters shelf life.

Ideal packaging solution with PackRight

The octagonal 5L Eco Pack is the latest innovation flowing from Spadel and DS Smith’s partnership over the last decade. As a B-Corp certified company, Spadel consistently seeks new ways to reduce its environmental footprint. DS Smith helped Spadel find and tailor its ideal packaging solution using their PackRight approach. This is a collaborative, four-step development process: starting with gaining insights, then moving on to pack development, testing and implementation. DS Smith’s Supply Cycle Thinking guided Spadel every step of the way to identify specific needs and optimize their 5L SPA® Reine Eco Pack.

Easy to use, easy to recycle

The SPA® Reine Eco Pack is 100% recyclable and convenient for daily use because of its innovative design. The pack is made from smart brown materials, which use unbleached and uncoated cardboard to minimize the amount of fiber used. Where colour is added to the cardboard, only water-based inks are applied. Furthermore, the octagonal design not only reduces the total amount of cardboard used, but also makes it easy, safe and efficient to stack the 5L Eco Packs up to 6 levels high without requiring additional pallets within the supply chain. Both the cardboard, inside plastic bag and tap materials were designed to ensure that people at home can easily separate and recycle them.

Customized packaging solution

“We are all very proud at DS Smith to have helped Spadel deliver such an amazingly tailored packaging solution”, said Philip Bautil, Managing Director Benelux at DS Smith. “Of course, as proud partners we have developed smarter and more sustainable packaging solutions over the years. The 5L SPA® Reine Eco Pack, however, is extra special as DS Smith and Spadel cooperated from early design all the way to our machine factory in Dijon, France, and installed a packing line at the Spadel’s site that uses advanced technology to produce the Eco Packs, and which ultimately helps Spadel deliver their refreshing mineral waters in even more easy to use and easy to recycle ways.”

*Average plastic reduction (in g/l) compared to packs SPA® Reine 6x1L and 6x1.5L