Think vodka, and the conventional product image tends to be a clear bottle of colourless liquor. But when a North Yorkshire distiller with a strong ethical and sustainable focus was considering the container for its new premium vodka brand, the company chose amber glass from Beatson Clark. “Our bespoke amber bottle has been beautifully decorated,” reveals Lynn Sidebottom, Beatson Clark’s Sales & Marketing Director, explaining that the glass has a high recycled content along with reduced transportation requirements. The product is “launching shortly” (at time of writing) and sounds likely to be as distinctive as it is environmentally friendly.
A glass packaging manufacturer that has diversified from supplying the pharmaceutical industry (Beatson Clark is still the UK’s only manufacturer of glass bottles and jars for pharma) into the food and beverage sectors, the South Yorkshire-based company tends to work with independent niche brands looking for high quality and low volumes, or with larger brands looking for a contingency supply or bespoke lines. “We aim to be as flexible as possible in terms of production, offering low-volume production runs and the ability to customise standard containers using new finish moulds,” explains Ms Sidebottom. “Our in-house design team specialises in sculpted embossing and we can also offer spraying and sleeving as alternative decorative techniques."
“We have several spirit and beer products in the pipeline which we’re excited about,” she adds. “Spirits is a growing market for us and there are lots of interesting developments happening in this category.”
Responding to market trends
Lynn Sidebottom is an experienced member of the glass industry. She joined Beatson Clark in 1980 as Marketing Assistant, then transferred to external sales with responsibility for some of the company’s key accounts and business development in new markets. She was promoted to the board in 1998 as UK Sales Director and subsequently Sales and Marketing Director, taking on responsibility for export sales and deputising for the CEO. During her time in the industry Lynn has been involved with FEVE and British Glass and is currently a serving board member of British Glass.
Quizzed for her take on the prevailing market conditions in the sectors Beatson Clark serves, Ms Sidebottom reports that sales of medicines are picking up again after a slow year when there were fewer colds and bugs in circulation during lockdown. “However, some of the recent upturn we have seen in the pharma sector has been down to alternative products such as cosmetics and male grooming. Amber glass blocks over 90% of UV light from entering the container and affecting its contents, and it is increasingly being valued by cosmetics brands looking for an artisan or vintage look for products such as beard oils."
“We have also seen a trend in health and nutrition brands such as Optibac [producer of supplements containing bacteria and live cultures] moving away from plastic packaging and towards glass, which is more sustainable and offers a more premium look and feel,” she adds.
As the Covid-19 pandemic begins to ease the UK brewing sector is starting to recover, notes Ms Sidebottom, but the lockdown-driven increase in consumers drinking at home has seen the emergence of start-ups as well as a “huge increase” in the no- and low-alcohol market and functional drinks such as kombucha fermented tea.
“When people were locked down and unable to exercise as easily, they looked for other ways to stay healthy, and this trend has led to the rise of health and nutrition drinks such as Hip Pop kombucha,” observes Ms Sidebottom, explaining how, in response to increased demand from drinks manufacturers, Beatson Clark launched last year’s 330ml Alpha drinks bottle. Aimed at niche soft drinks brands, the retro-style amber container is based on an Alpha Sirop pharmaceutical bottle normally used for medicines and is tested to 3.0 bar, making it suitable for carbonated or fermented drinks. The design can also be used for beers as it is available with both an MCA and a standard crown neck finish.
Expanding recycling facilities
When Glass Worldwide last spoke to Ms Sidebottom (see the November/December 2016 issue), in excess of £20 million had been invested in machinery and technology at the Rotherham site, including rebuilding the white flint and amber furnaces, installation of new cold end inspection machines and implementing UV inkjet coding across all production lines for improved product traceability.
The business has recently invested a further £1 million in expanding its on-site recycling plant and installing new, more efficient equipment designed and supplied by REDWAVE (a division of BT-Wolfgang Binder). “We have installed additional optical sorters, vibratory feeder conveyors, new screening machines and a new JCB telehandler,” confirms Ms Sidebottom. “Additional processing stages have been introduced using new vibrating screens and dedicated optical sorters, improving quality and reducing waste.
“The new equipment and the additional inspection stages have reduced the false rejects of glass which were removed with the CSP (ceramics, stones and pottery) by over 50%, which in turn has increased the plant efficiency,” she reports. “This makes the process more sustainable and means less waste glass going to aggregate for reuse rather than being truly recycled within our furnaces.”
Its carefully planned recycling facility saw Beatson Clark shortlisted for the ‘Sustainable Practice’ category at the Glass Focus 2021 Awards. “Much of the new equipment was installed in order to manufacture in a more resource-efficient way,” explains Ms Sidebottom. “This included a new canopy to protect infeed material from the elements and a new optical sorter to reduce waste.”
Collecting cullet
As well as reducing transport miles generated through the supply chain, improved facility for re-sorting recycled glass at source gives Beatson Clark greater control over the quality of its cullet. “Our recycling plant used to generate on average 50% of this cullet; following these investments it now generates over 75% of the cullet,” reports Ms Sidebottom. “The quality of the cullet we use has improved, and the amount we use has increased by 25% in the last five years [post-consumer recycled content is currently 30% for white flint and 45% for amber glass]. We plan to increase this further.”
The company is encouraged by British Glass’ industry-wide commitment to achieving 90% rate of collection for recycling by 2030 – “If the overall recycling rate increases, there should be more recycled glass available, which will lead to higher levels of recycled content in our containers,” suggests Ms Sidebottom. However, the UK Government’s proposed Deposit Return Scheme brings with it the concern “that including glass in the current DRS proposal would encourage more production of harmful plastics to the detriment of natural, healthy and sustainable glass packaging.” Beatson Clark champions the current “excellent system” for recycling glass through kerbside collections and bottle banks, but “we would support alternative DRS schemes such as the digital DRS which would enable consumers to continue to recycle at home,” notes Ms Sidebottom.
Safety and training
In a first for a glass manufacturer anywhere in the world, the company spent several months working with virtual reality experts VRMT to help develop a new training system to teach staff how to operate Beatson Clark’s production machines and improve understanding of the glass-making process. The training programme recreates a lifelike 3D virtual model of the factory and allows new IS machine operators to fully understand the bottle forming process and identify faults. The programme is first of its kind to be used by a glass manufacturer, and in the future the company plans to use it to provide detailed refresher training for existing staff. The VRMT virtual reality training programme is “now used widely throughout the industry,” observes Ms Sidebottom.
The company has also implemented an effective new contractor control system to reduce the number of incidents involving visiting contractors. “The signs are that the system is working,” and it gained Beatson Clark another nod at the Glass Focus awards – this time a shortlisting in the Health & Safety Action category.
Upgrading operations
Additional developments at Beatson Clark include six new IS machines (installation of the sixth is currently in progress) and the refurbishment of one more to offer increased container variety. “We will also be introducing an auto swabbing robot from Novaxion to our IS machines in 2022,” adds Ms Sidebottom.
“The investments we have made in new IS machines has given us even more flexibility in the products we can produce. State-of-the-art inspection equipment ensures the high quality of our containers and the technological advances in design (sculpted embossing) further enhance our design service, enabling us to offer customers highly complex and defined embossing.”
The manufacturer has also added three new palletisers – one of which can pack multiple formats – to boost flexibility, a Bradman Lake case packer to create shrink-film wrapped smaller packs, and a new Messersì shrink wrapping machine for pallets to improve the quality of its packaging. Implementing an ERP [enterprise resource planning] management information system is helping Beatson Clark to streamline and centralise its systems.
“Looking ahead to larger investments, both furnaces will be rebuilt in the next five or six years and there will be a new batch plant,” continues Ms Sidebottom. “The new furnaces will be fitted with furnace condition monitoring using radar to monitor the thickness of the refractory; this helps us to judge more accurately when repairs or rebuilds are required as we will be constantly monitoring the status of the furnace. At the moment this task is outsourced periodically.”
Challenges and opportunities
Being an essential part of the food, drink and pharmaceutical supply chain with production processes running 24/7, the Covid-19 pandemic has been “challenging” for Beatson Clark, but “we’re very proud of our staff, who are key workers and who have gone above and beyond what was expected of them to maintain normal business operations,” says Ms Sidebottom. “The market has been extremely difficult and unpredictable to forecast since the start of the pandemic, so we have had to be flexible and support customers throughout. We have successfully maintained supply throughout the crisis, even when white flint capacity was full across the glass packaging sector.”
Brexit is less of a worry: “We are extremely experienced exporters, so we have adapted to the new procedures easily,” reports Ms Sidebottom. “Increased transportation costs have been a challenge for us, but at the same time UK brands are now turning to us as a UK manufacturer rather than importing their glass, which is a huge advantage of Brexit for UK manufacturing.”
Customers are increasingly seeking the security and quality of a UK manufacturer, believes Ms Sidebottom. This desire to ‘shop local’ is complemented by buying behaviour evidenced in the food and pharma sector, “as consumers look to source sustainable, recyclable packaging” – another bonus for the glass manufacturer. However, there is still confusion in the market about sustainability, according to Ms Sidebottom: “We need clear messaging for the consumer about the true sustainability of all pack formats. For example, cans are a major threat to glass, yet most consumers do not know that they contain a plastic layer that comes into contact with your food and drink, and they are unaware of the detrimental effect mining the raw materials has on the environment.”
Supporting FEVE’s ‘Glass Hallmark’ initiative that encourages brands to promote the recyclability and inert nature of glass packaging, Beatson Clark raises the hallmark with customers at the new product development stage. “We have also embossed the Glass Hallmark on our promotional spirit bottle to help promote it more widely,” says Ms Sidebottom.
With sustainability “an integral part of our philosophy as glass manufacturers,” Beatson Clark is constantly looking at new ways to reduce its carbon footprint and cut waste, to the benefit of the business, and ultimately customers seeking a product that is natural, inert and endlessly recyclable. “We offer the advantages of continuous reliable supply, excellent customer service and high quality,” assures Ms Sidebottom.
Image: People first: the safety of staff, trainees and visiting contractors is a top priority at Beatson Clark (inset: Lynn Sidebottom).