Country: Germany

Category: Food

BIO PLANÈTE has launched the Rev|OIL|ution: Europe's first organic oil mill fills eight different organic edible oils in a new, innovative and standardised 500-millilitre returnable bottle at its German site. It is the foundation for the first ever returnable system for edible oils.

Glass bottles are the ideal packaging material for BIO PLANÈTE because glass protects the high-quality oils and prevents substances from migrating from the bottle into the oils. In line with the motto #FOOD CHANGES THE WORLD, BIO PLANÈTE has been researching a solution for years to make the glass bottles more sustainable. Using existing reusable bottles (e.g. juice or beer) was out of the question because they are not compatible with the spout that is essential for oil and require a different cleaning process.

A new, reusable and standardised glass bottle for edible oil was developed under the leadership of the Berlin start-up dotch and launched on the German market by BIO PLANÈTE at the end of 2023. Consumers in Germany pay a 50 cent deposit per bottle and can return them to the usual deposit machines for drinks bottles. The collection of the bottles, their cleaning and redelivery to the oil mills is organised via dotch.

The BIO PLANÈTE oils in the reusable bottle are now available almost everywhere in the German organic trade. They combine functionality, sustainability and design.

Each reusable oil bottle can be reused up to 50 times and is more sustainable than the previous disposable bottle from the second reuse onwards. It offers the light protection and has the indispensable spout for drip-free dispensing. The BIO PLANÈTE brand will save around 290 tonnes of CO2 per year as a result of the changeover – for Germany, the figure could be much higher. It is estimated that around 320 million cooking oil bottles currently end up in German glass containers every year. If all these bottles were part of the reusable cycle, more than 40,000 tonnes of CO2 could be saved.
In the production of glass bottles, used glass is melted down together with the limited resources of quartz sand, lime and soda at temperatures of up to 1,600 degrees Celsius. In contrast, the cleaning process for the new reusable bottles takes place at around 85 degrees. The new reusable bottle is also designed to be 20 per cent lighter than the Marasca and Dorica oil bottles previously used by BIO PLANÈTE, which reduces the amount of glass used overall.

Another positive effect is the changeover from adhesive labels to wet glue labels, which is necessary for reusable bottles to ensure residue-free cleaning. Adhesive labels are usually supplied on a carrier material and generate an enormous amount of waste. The labels are also incinerated in the bottle recycling process. In contrast, wet glue labels are completely removed in a water bath and can be sent for paper recycling. Similarly, lids and spouts are normally incinerated in the recycling process, whereas they can be recycled by type in the case of reusable bottles.